In such a state of affairs it was only natural that she should ask herself whether Keymer, unknown to his friends and acquaintances, might not have left home on purpose to marry someone at a distance, and might not, at that very time, be on his bridal tour. It was a tormenting thought, and one of which Hetty could by no means disabuse her mind.
Anyone less persevering or less determined to leave no stone unturned in the task she had set herself would have gone back home disheartened, and have done her utmost to forget that anyone so unspeakably mean as Launce Keymer had proved himself to be should ever have beguiled her into loving him. But Miss Hetty was made of different stuff. She knew that Keymer could not stay away for ever. It might be months, perhaps even a year, before he returned. But that he would return she felt little doubt, and should he then bring with him a wife—well, in that case, let him look to himself! Meanwhile she would stay on where she was.
It was as well for the success of her purpose that she decided to do so. Among others whose acquaintance she had succeeded in making since her arrival at St. Oswyth’s was the nursery governess at Mr. Keymer’s (for the brewer’s youngest child by his second marriage was as yet but seven years old), who, like herself, belonged to Dulminster, a fact which Hetty put forward as a sort of bond to draw them together. The result was that they met frequently when Miss Doris Lane was out with her youthful charge, and had many confidential gossips together in which, however, Hetty’s part was more that of listener than talker. Thus by degrees she learnt more about Launce and his “carryings on” than she had ever known before, and it was by no means a flattering portrait which the governess sketched for her. Still, all this in no way served to advance the object Hetty had in view, seeing that Doris, no more than others, was in a position to point to any young lady as being Launce Keymer’s fiancée, although in their talks together Hetty recurred again and again to that particular topic.
At length Doris said one day with a touch of impatience:
“Why are you for ever asking me whether I am sure Mr. Launce is not engaged to somebody? It’s enough to make one fancy that you are fishing for him yourself.”
Then Hetty took a sudden resolution. From what she had seen of Doris she thought she might be trusted, and in any case the time had come when it seemed better to risk telling her secret, if by so doing anything could be gained, rather than go on from day to day in utter ignorance of that which she was burning to discover.
“It is not because I am fishing for Launce Keymer,” she said, “but because till a few weeks ago he was my promised husband, and because it ended in his treating me like the scoundrel he is, that I want to know whether he has flung me aside in order that he may engage himself to someone else.”
Doris gasped and opened her eyes to their widest extent, and for a few moments could find nothing to say.
Then presently Hetty went on to tell of the loss of her letters and the means by which it had been accomplished. This sent Doris’s indignation up to boiling-point, which thereupon proceeded to vent itself in certain expressions which, as referring to himself, Launce Keymer would scarcely have cared to listen to.
Miss Lane’s sympathy and outspoken indignation were sweet to Hetty, who had often longed for a confidant to whom she could open her mind. “And yet now I’ve told her, she can help me no more than she could before,” she said to herself with a sigh. But in so saying she was mistaken, as was presently to be proved.