"In this abandonment of grief and love, a voice, a man's voice, whispered near me:
"'Alice, my dear Alice.'
"I raised my head and looked the speaker in the face. I did not know him personally then. I know him now. It was Lord Wilton. Captain Edward Fitzmorris, in those days. His faced kindled to a deep red. He muttered something about 'people intruding upon private property,' and walked hastily away, and I returned to my mother bearing in my heart the bitter conviction of the truth of her remarks.
"The next day I left S——.
"It was not long before I got a letter from my mother, which informed me that Alice had been dismissed from the Hall in disgrace, and had returned to her grandmother, who, finding that she was likely to become a mother, and that she obstinately refused to name the father of her child had driven her from the door, and the unfortunate girl had wandered away, no one knew whither.
"My mother had tried to discover her retreat, but could obtain no trace of her. It was the general report of the town that she had walked into the sea when the tide was coming in, and suffered the waves to flow over her.
"Her fate still remains a mystery.
"Suspicion pointed to Captain Fitzmorris as her probable seducer. For my own part, I never had any doubts upon the subject. He left England, as attaché to a foreign embassy, a few months before her dismissal from the Hall, and never visited this part of the country until lately.
"Sir Thomas, his elder brother, was killed in battle; Earl Wilton, his uncle, died shortly after, and Captain Edward inherited, through his mother, his title and immense wealth."
"But, my dear Henry, I do not see what connection all this has with Dorothy Chance," said Mrs. Martin.