"Oh, but he was married before he left England the last time, which accounts for his sending no message to me in his letter."
"Why, Dolly, did the wife write that? I never heard you read a word on't in her letter?"
Dorothy was dumb-foundered, she had quite forgotten that Lord Wilton was her informant, and to get out of the scrape into which she had fallen, for she abhorred all concealment, she thought it best to show Mrs. Rushmere the Earl's letter.
Sending Polly downstairs to prepare the dinner, she made her mother take a seat on a lounge by the window, while she read the important document, and shewed her the mysterious sealed packet, and the draft for the money.
Mrs. Rushmere made her read it twice over. It was a long time before she spoke. She sat lost in a profound reverie.
"Mother," said Dorothy, "you will not mention what I have read to any one. Neither to father nor Gilbert."
"Poor Gilly," sighed the mother, "how blind he has been to reject the gold and take up with the dross, and exchange a real lady for a cunning impostor. He ha' given himself away for a brass farthing. Well, Dorothy, you have had your revenge, and bitterly will father and son repent o' their obstinate folly."
"We will talk no more of that, mother. It was a painful experience, but it is past and gone. The Lord did not intend me to be Gilbert's wife. 'The lot is cast into the lap, but the choosing of it is from Him.' I feel this day happy and grateful that it is so."
"You may well do that, Dorothy. Your fortunes, will, indeed, lie far apart. Oh! my child, when I think of all that he has lost, of all that might have been his, it is enough to break my heart."