'And now she has sent back all my notes, and won't look at me or speak to me,' and Dolores's tears began afresh.
'It is very ungenerous of her, but very likely she will be very sorry to have done so when her first anger is over, and she understands that you were quite as much deceived as she was.'
'But I shall never care for her again. It is not like Mysie, who never stopped being kind all the time-nor Gillian either. I shall cut her next time!'
'You should remember that she has something to forgive. I don't want you to be intimate with her but I think it would be better if, instead of quarrelling openly, you wrote a note to say that you were deceived and that you are very sorry for what you brought on her.'
'I should not have gone on with it but for her and Her stupid poems!'
'Can you bear to tell me how it all was, my dear? I do not half understand it.'
And on the way home, and in Lady Merrifield's own room Dolores found it a relief to pour forth an explanation of the whole affair, beginning with that meeting with Mr. Flinders at Exeter, of which no one had heard, and going on to her indignation at the inspection of her letters; and how Constance had undertaken to conduct her correspondence, 'and that made it seem as if she must write to some one,'-so she wrote to Uncle Alfred. And then Constance, becoming excited at the prospect of a literary connection, all the rest followed. It was a great relief to have told it all, and Lady Merrifield was glad to see that the sense of deceit was what weighed most heavily upon her niece, and seemed to have depressed her all along. Indeed, the aunt came to the conclusion that though Dolores alone might still have been sullen, morose and disagreeable, perhaps very reserved, she never would have kept up the systematic deceit but for Constance. The errors, regarded as sin, weighed on Lady Merrifield's mind, but she judged it wiser not to press that thought on an unprepared spirit, trusting that just as Dolores had wakened to the sense of the human love that surrounded her, hitherto disbelieved and disregarded, so she might yet awake to the feeling of the Divine love and her offence against it.
The afternoon was tolerably free, for the gentlemen, including the elder boys, walked to evensong at a neighbouring church noted for its musical services, and Lady Merrifield, as she said, 'lashed herself up' to go with Gillian, carry back the remnant of the unhappy 'Waif,' and 'have it out' with Constance, who would, she feared, never otherwise understand the measure of her own delinquency, and from whom, perhaps, evidence might be extracted which would palliate the poor child's offence in the eyes of Colonel Mohun. Both the Hacket sisters looked terribly frightened when she appeared, and the elder one made an excuse for getting her outside the door to beseech her to be careful, dear Constance was so nervous and so dreadfully upset by all she had undergone. Lady Merrifield was not the least nervous of the two, and she felt additionally displeased with Constance for not having said one word of commiseration when her sister had inquired for Dolores. On returning to the drawing-room, Lady Merrifield found the young lady standing by the window, playing with the blind, and looking as if she wanted to make her escape.
'I do not know whether you will be sorry or glad to see this,' said Lady Merrifield, producing a half-burnt roll of paper. 'It was found in Mr. Flinders's grate, and my brother thought you would be glad that it should not get into strange hands.'
'Oh, it was cruel! it was base! What a wicked man he is!' cried Constance, with hot tears, as she beheld the mutilated condition of her poor 'Waif.'
'Yes, it was a most unfortunate thing that you. should have run into intercourse with such an utterly untrustworthy person.'
'I was grossly deceived, Lady Merrifield!' said Constance, clasping her hands somewhat theatrically.
'I shall never believe in any one again!'
'Not without better grounds, I hope,' was the answer. 'Your poor little friend is terribly broken down by all this.'
'Don't call her my friend. Lady Merrifield. She has used me shamefully! What business had she to tell me he was her uncle when he was no such thing?'
'She had been always used to call him so.'
'Don't tell me, Lady Merrifield,' said Constance, who, after her first fright, was working herself into a passion. 'You don't know what a little viper you have been warming, nor what things she has been continually saying of you. She told me-'
Lady Merrifield held up her hand with authority.
'Stay, Constance. Do you think it is generous in you to tell me this?'
'I am sure you ought to know.'
'Then why did you encourage her?'
'I pitied her-I believed her-I never thought she would have led me into this!'
'How did she lead you?'
'Always talking about her precious, persecuted uncle. I believe she was in league with him all the time!'
'That is nonsense,' said Lady Merrifield, 'as you must see if you reflect a little. Dolores was too young to have been told this man's real character; she only knew that her mother, who had spent her childhood with him, treated him as a brother, and did all she could for him. Dolores did very wrongly and foolishly in keeping up a connection with him unknown to me; but I cannot help feeling there was great excuse for her, and she was quite as much deceived as you were.'
'Oh, of course, you stand by your own niece, Lady Merrifield. If you knew what horrid things she said about your pride and unkindness, as she called it, you would not think she deserved it.'
'Nay, that is exactly what does most excuse her in my eyes. Her fancying such things of me was what did prevent her from confiding in me.'
Constance had believed herself romantic, but the Christian chivalry of Lady Merrifield's nature was something quite beyond her. She muttered something about Dolores not deserving, which made her visitor really angry, and say, 'We had better not talk of deserts. Dolores is a mere child-a mother-less child, who had been a good deal left to herself for many months. I let her come to you because she seemed shy and unhappy with us, and I did not like to deny her the one pleasure she seemed to care for. I knew what an excellent person and thorough lady your sister is, and I thought I could perfectly trust her with you. I little thought you would have encouraged her in concealment, and-I must say-deceit, and thus made me fail in the trust her father reposed in me.'
'I would never have done it,' Constance sobbed, 'but for what she said about you. Lady Merrifield!'
'Well, and even if I am such a hard, severe person, does that make it honourable or right to help the child I trusted to you to carry on this underhand correspondence?'
Constance hung her head. Her sister had said the same to her, but she still felt herself the most injured party, and thought it very hard that she should be so severely blamed for what the girls at her school treated so lightly. She said, 'I am very sorry. Lady Merrifield,' but it was not exactly the tone of repentance, and it ended with: 'If it had not been for her, I should never have done it.'
'I suppose not, for there would have been no temptation. I was in hopes that you would have shown some kindlier and more generous feeling towards the younger girl, who could not have gone so far wrong without your assistance, and who feels your treatment of her very bitterly. But to find you incapable of understanding what you have done, makes me all the more glad that the friendship-if friendship it can be called-is broken off between you. Good-bye. I think when you are older and wiser, you will be very sorry to recollect the doings of the last few months.'
Lady Merrifield walked away, and found on her return that Dolores had succeeded in writing to her father, and was so utterly tired out by the feelings it had cost her that she was only fit to lie on the sofa and sleep.
Gillian was, of course, not seen till she came home from evening service.
'Oh, mamma,' she said, 'what did you do to Constance?'
'Why?'
'Well, I heard you shut the front door. And presently after there came such a noise through the wall that all the girls pricked up their ears, and Miss Hacket jumped up in a fright. If it had been Val, one would have called it a naughty child roaring.'
'What! did I send her into hysterics?'
'I suppose, as she is grown up, it must have the fine name, but it wasn't a bit like poor Dolly's choking. I am sure she did it to make her sister come! Well, of course, Miss Hacket went away, and I did the best I could, but what could one do with all these screeches and bellowings breaking out?'
