‘You can read it, if you please,’ the girl cried; ‘but if you read it, I will die!’
Mr. Loseby looked at Anne and she at him. Something passed between them in that look, which the others did not understand. A sudden flush of colour covered her face. She said softly ‘My trust is not over yet. What can it matter to anyone but ourselves what is in the letter? We have had business enough for one day.’
And Rose did not appear at lunch. She had been overwrought, everybody said. She lay down in a dark room all the afternoon with a great deal of eau de Cologne about, and her mother sitting by. Mrs. Mountford believed in bed, and the pulling down of the blinds. It was a very strange day: after the luncheon, at which the queen of the feast was absent, and no one knew what to say, the familiar guests walked about the grounds for a little, not knowing what to think, and then judiciously took themselves away till the evening, while Mr. Loseby disappeared with Anne, and Mrs. Mountford soothed her daughter. In the evening Rose appeared in a very pretty dress, though with pale cheeks. Anne, who was far more serious now than she had been in the morning, kissed her little sister tenderly, but they did not say anything to each other. Neither from that time to this has the subject ever been mentioned by one to the other. The money was divided exactly between them, and Anne gave no explanations even to her most intimate friends. Whether it was Rose who shared with her, or she with Rose, nobody knew. The news stole out, and for a little while everybody celebrated Rose to the echo; but then another whisper got abroad, and no one knew what to think. As a matter of fact, however, Mr. Mountford’s two daughters divided everything he left behind. The only indication Anne ever received that the facts of the case had oozed out beyond the circle of the family, was in the following strange letter, which she received some time after, when her approaching marriage to Heathcote Mountford, of Mount, was made known:—
‘You will be surprised to receive a letter from me. Perhaps it is an impertinence on my part to write. But I will never forget the past, though I may take it for granted that you have done so. Your father’s letter, which I hear was read on your sister’s birthday, will explain many things to you and, perhaps, myself among the many. I do not pretend that I was aware of it, but I may say that I divined it; and divining it, what but one thing in the face of all misconstructions, remained for me to do? Perhaps you will understand me and do me a little justice now. Pardon me, at least, for having troubled even so small a portion of your life. I try to rejoice that it has been but a small portion. In mine you stand where you always did. The altar may be veiled and the worshipper say his litanies unheard. He is a nonjuror, and his rites are licensed by no authority, civil or sacred: nor can he sing mass for any new king. Yet in darkness and silence and humiliation, for your welfare, happiness, and prosperity does ever pray—C. D.’
Anne was moved by this letter more than it deserved, and wondered if, perhaps——? But it did not shake her happiness as, possibly, it was intended to do.
And then followed one of the most remarkable events in this story. Rose, who had always been more or less worldly-minded, and who would never have hesitated to say that to better yourself was the most legitimate object in life—Rose—no longer a great heiress, but a little person with a very good fortune, and quite capable of making what she, herself, would have called a good marriage—Rose married Willie Ashley, to the astonishment and consternation of everybody. Mrs. Mountford, though she lives with them and is on the whole fond of her son-in-law, has not even yet got over her surprise. And as for the old Rector, it did more than surprise, it bewildered him. A shade of alarm comes over his countenance still, when he speaks of it. ‘I had nothing to do with it,’ he is always ready to say. With the Curate the feeling is still deeper and more sombre. In the depths of his heart he cannot forgive his brother. That Rose should have been the one to appreciate modest merit and give it its reward, Rose and not her sister—seems like blasphemy to Charley. Nevertheless, there are hopes that Lucy Woodhead, who is growing up a very nice girl, and prettier than her sister, may induce even the faithful Curate to change the current of his thoughts and ways.
THE END.
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