"How could I have gone?" asked Dick, with a groan of anguish that went to the listener's heart and told her something of what he had suffered.
"Then you did think it was Norah who married Sir Edward Peyton. I thought you misunderstood, and yet I purposely held my tongue. I know what my silence has done. I felt it when I realised what it would be if I were called on to part with Bertram. You will never forgive me, never."
"For pity's sake tell me what you mean, Gertrude! I am not often so impatient, but suspense will drive me mad. Is Norah married?"
"No, Dick, neither has she ever been engaged. Do you remember that morning when Miss Pease was reading the colonel's letter, in which he called his daughter 'Eleanor'? Nora was going to explain why she was never addressed by it at her aunt's, but someone interrupted. She told me afterwards that Eleanor was her grandmother's name, and that her elder cousin bore it as well as herself. To distinguish between them, one was called Nelly; that was the girl whom Miss Pease described as having been 'all elbows' when she was just in her teens, and the other, our Eleanor, was Norah to everybody. Nelly is Lady Peyton, and Norah is Norah Pease to-day."
An irrepressible thanksgiving broke from Richard's lips, and confirmed Gertrude's conviction, whilst it increased her penitence.
"You must know all," she added. "All the rest believed that you knew which of the girls was engaged to Sir Edward Peyton. I led them to think so, without directly saying it; and though they had thought you cared for Norah, when you went away so suddenly they concluded either that they had made a mistake or that she had refused you. This is why they scarcely named her in letters."
"Are Colonel Pease and Norah in England?" asked Richard, in a voice unlike his own, so moved was he.
"Yes; and they are coming here to-morrow. They were to have come together so long ago, but they have been wintering abroad and travelling about with the other family ever since."
There was a short silence, and again Gertrude faltered out—
"Can you forgive me, now you know all?"