"Oh, uncle, Miss Graystone has gone away, and is not coming back any more, for mamma says so! She called her an artful piece, and said she was trying to captivate you with her pretty face. What is captivate, uncle? Is it anything so very dreadful? I know it ain't to be cross and push me away, as mamma does, for Miss Graystone never did that, but only loved me, and told me nice stories. I don't believe she tries to captivate half so much as mamma does herself."
There were more tears and lamentations, and from amidst the disjointed medley, Wilfred Vaughn learned that a great wrong had been done a beautiful and innocent girl, and he had been the unconscious cause. He sat buried in thought long after the twilight shadows had gathered and deepened around him. The artless questions of Alice had startled him into a knowledge of his own true position, and he knew now that he loved this sweet-faced young girl who was yet almost a stranger to him. He knew but little of her former life or antecedents, yet he would have staked worlds on her truth and honor. He had not before dreamed of the possibility, but now the conviction fastened upon him that this was his fate. He knew in that hour of self-communion that the love of Clemence Graystone was necessary to his happiness, and he made one firm resolve to win her for his own.
"Alice tells me that you have dismissed Miss Graystone?" he said inquiringly to his sister-in-law, a few days after. "I was surprised to hear it. I thought you well pleased with her."
"You will be still more surprised," replied the lady, "when I tell you the cause of her dismissal. I have been imposed upon by the girl too long already, but nobody would have dreamed, from her meek ways, that she was anything but perfection. I did not intend to trouble you with the affair, which is the reason of my not asking your advice before acting so much against my own inclination. I would not have believed anything of Miss Graystone from a third party, for I know she is an orphan and friendless, and I do try and be charitable towards all poor and worthy persons. And then too, Will, you know how I have been bothered about a teacher, and she suited the place so well, I think it was positively ungrateful in her to act as she did."
This last remark was uttered with a pretty affectation of impatience, and a pout of the rich, red lips, and Wilfred Vaughn, listening, forgot for the moment his interest in the young teacher, so lost was he in admiration of the beautiful face before him.
"But, what did you find out?" he said, again returning to the subject.
"Read this, and you will see that she has condemned herself," she answered, handing him a letter, "and thank me for preserving you from the snare that was laid from your unwary footsteps."
It was written in a delicate lady's hand, and ran as follows:
"Dear Karl:—I have only a moment in which to reply to your letter of the 3d, but will write you more at length at some further date. I am teaching in the family of a wealthy lady, until fate throws something more agreeable in my way. This is all that keeps me from despair.
"My own! what would I not give to see you? Oh, this fearful curse of poverty! I must find some means of escape from my difficulties, or go mad. I cannot live without you. I have planned a thousand impossible schemes, which I have been obliged to abandon as unavailing.