"But I could not love Lord Wilton if I were that miserable lost creature's daughter," cried Dorothy, wringing her hands. "Oh mother! mother! it would be worse than being called the beggar's brat that farmer Rushmere picked up on the heath. If I thought that I were his child through that infamous connection, I would spurn him and his gift from me as accursed things!"
She took the packet from her bosom, and was about to put her threat into execution. Mrs. Rushmere stayed her hand.
"Dorothy, what be you about? Supposing your mother to have been his wife, you may be destroying the proofs of your legitimacy. As Lawrence would say, 'cutting your own throat.'"
"True," said Dorothy, frightened at her own rashness. "How wrong it is of any one to act without thinking. This wedding-ring, after all, may be a true witness that my poor mother was an honest woman."
"At any rate, Dorothy, it is useless for you to try and puzzle out the truth; even if so be that you hit upon it, without farther evidence you could not satisfy yoursel' that it was so. But be sartin sure o' this, that mystery and concealment are generally used to cover crime. If Lord Wilton had acted rightly, he would not have been afraid of owning his wife to the world. Selfishness and sin must lie at some one's door, and women—the poor creatures—when they love, generally fling their all into the scale, regardless of consequences.
"But there's the dinner-bell, my pet, father will be rampaging if he comes in and finds us talking here."
After Dorothy had given Mrs. Rushmere her tea that evening, and got her comfortably to bed, she tripped across the dreary heath by the light of the July moon to see Mrs. Martin, and tell her all that had transpired.
She found no one at home but Mr. Fitzmorris, who was walking up and down the lawn, with a closed book in his hand, in which he could no longer see to read. He looked up, as the little gate swung to, and came forward to meet her. "Oh, Mr. Fitzmorris, you are the very person I wanted to see. I am so glad to find you alone."
He looked into the sweet face with an inquiring glance, but seemed suddenly struck with its unusual pallor.
"Dorothy, something has happened to annoy you. I can read that face of yours like an open book. You could not deceive any one."