He drew forth the letter, carefully wrapped in a double envelope. She took it from him quickly, and tore the covering open. This is what she read:
"My Dear Miss Windsor: When I see you again—as I hope, if the fates so will, I may—you, I hope, will be married, and I shall be getting to be an old man. Fifteen years is much to take from the sunny part of a man's life; and I can hardly look for much but shadow after that. I have thought much of you, since I have been here, and of our last meeting. And I have but one thing to tell you—what, perhaps, it would have been better for me to have told you long since—and to ask for your forgiveness for myself. I should not like to think that you were thinking ill of me, all these years that I am to stay within these walls.
"Eleanor Carey—at whose feet, as I now know, you must have seen me that day at Chichester—was the woman I loved when she was a young girl, beautiful, as you know; lovely, as I then thought. She was Eleanor Leigh then. Eleanor Carey pretended on that day that she had never ceased to love me. My noble friend John Dacre had formed a plot to restore the King of England, and this woman was one of us. It was she who made a breach between us that day. It was she who went the morning before to my house, and, overhearing Dacre's talk to me, stole a paper containing the names and plan of our conspiracy. It was she who of all our friends was the only traitor. She murdered my dear friend as truly as if it had been her hand that dealt the blow. He was shot in the Tower court below here, with his back to the wall, by a company of soldiers. And, as I now believe, it was Eleanor Carey who in some way met the King, and kept him from us on that day.
"I tell you all this that you may believe, in spite of all you may have seen that day at Chichester, Eleanor Carey is not the woman I love. You did not believe this at Ripon House. Margaret, will you believe it now?
"Yours, forever,
"Geoffrey Ripon."
"Fifteen years!" said Maggie, meditatively, after she had read the letter, with varying waves of white and red in her face, not unremarked by Reynolds, as he stood with his hat in his two hands.
"Fifteen years! Papa!"
The door of an adjoining room opened, and Mr. Windsor appeared.
"Yes, my dear."
"Papa, this is Mr. Reynolds."
"Mr. Reynolds, I am very happy to make your acquaintance."
"Mr. Reynolds was Lord Brompton's servant—at Ripon, you remember?"
"Oh! Reynolds, I am glad to see you."