"In this emergency she applied to her grandmother for protection, who, at first, ignorant of her cause for leaving Lady Dorothy, received her into the house. I have no doubt that had she taken the wise course of making a confidant of this wicked old woman, her pride and avarice would have been so highly gratified, that she would have given her a home without paying any regard to the disgrace attached to her name.
"The discovery of her situation exasperated the old woman to fury. She did not even ask for an explanation, but thrust her from her doors with cruel words and coarse usage.
"Thus far, I was informed by a man who waited in the shop, who told me that he was so much affected by the distressed looks of the affrighted girl, that it moved him to tears. After the shop was closed, he sought her through the town, but no one had seen or could give him any account of her retreat.
"A report got into circulation, which made my mother very sorry for the part she had played in this tragedy, that Alice Knight had walked into the sea when the tide was coming in, and buried her shame and sorrow in the waves. I never could believe this story. I felt in my soul that she was still living, and loved me too well to have taken such a rash and wicked step. From the hour she left Mrs. Knight's house, her fate remained till very lately a mystery. How she passed the intervening period between the birth of Dorothy and her own melancholy death while in search of me will never be accurately known.
"I was retained at the Court of St. Petersburgh for nearly three years. I wrote constantly under cover to my agent, to Alice, often sending her large sums of money, and was astonished when my man of business informed me after the lapse of twelve months, that all my letters had been returned from the dead letter office, as no such person as Alice Knight was to be found.
"I then wrote to Lady Dorothy, confessing to her that I was the father of Alice Knight's child, and imploring her to tell me what had become of the mother and her babe.
"Lady Dorothy died before this letter reached England, and her father, the Earl of Wilton, only survived her a few weeks, leaving to me the fortune for which I had sacrificed my wife and child, too late to afford me any pleasure.
"The death of my eldest brother, which happened abroad, gave Lady Dorothy such a shock that she never got over it. I thus suddenly and unexpectedly became a wealthy and titled man.
"I had married in the summer of the year 1797, and returned to England in July, 1800. On my way to Hadstone, I must have passed over the heath, during that dreadful storm, unconscious that the beloved object whose loss had plunged me into a state of incurable grief, was dying, exposed to its pitiless fury, in the wet hollow beneath.
"From that hour until I met Dorothy, I could obtain no reliable information concerning my poor wife. When this dear girl first presented herself before me, and I saw in the glass the wonderful likeness, (which you, Gerard, cannot fail to recognize) between the country girl and my aristocratic mother, and through her to me, and heard the sound of her voice, so like my lost wife's, I could hardly refrain from clasping her in my arms, and telling her that she was my child.