“Yes,” said Miss Fortescue, solemnly, “we were married. But listen. I believed that the marriage was real. He told some story about his friends being unwilling--about his father, who, he said, would disown him if he found it out. He urged a private marriage, without any public announcement. He knew a young clergyman, he said, who would do him that favor. For my part I had not the slightest objection. I loved him too well to care about a formal wedding. So we were married in his rooms, with a friend of his for witness. “He set up a modest little house, where we lived for about a year. At first my life was one of perfect happiness, but gradually I saw a change coming over him. He was terribly in debt, and was afraid of utter ruin. From hints that dropped from him, I began to suspect that he meditated some sort of treachery toward me. Then, for the first time, I was alarmed at the privacy of our marriage. Still, I was afraid to say any thing to him, for fear that it might hasten any treachery toward me which he might meditate. I loved him as dearly as ever, but I found out that he was base and unprincipled, and felt that he was capable of any thing. I had to content myself with watching him, and at the same time tried to be as cheerful as possible. “At length he heard about you, and came to Dalton. His father sent him, he said. I followed him here. At first he was angry, but I persuaded him to take me as an assistant. He did not want to be known at the Hall, for he wished to see first what could be done with Wiggins. He made me disguise myself as a man, and so I called myself Lieutenant Dudleigh. He went to Dalton Hall, and discovered that the porter was some old criminal who had done his crime on the Dudleigh estates--poaching, I think, or murder, or both. On seeing Wiggins, he was able to obtain some control over him--I don't know what. He never would tell me. “By this time I found out what I had all along suspected--that he came here for your sake. He was terribly in debt. A dark abyss lay before him. He began to feel me to be an incumbrance. He began to wish that he was a free man, so that he might marry you. I saw all this with a grief that I can not tell. “We made several calls on you. I went as his mother, Mrs. Mowbray.” “Mrs. Mowbray! You!” exclaimed Edith, in wonder. “Did I act my part well?” said Miss Fortescue, mournfully. “It was an easy enough part. I believe I succeeded in making myself utterly detestable. Captain Dudleigh was bitterly vexed at my manner. He wanted me to gain your confidence. That, however, I could not yet bring myself to do. His own intercourse with you was even worse. Your attempt to escape was a terrible blow to his hopes. Yet he dared not let you escape. That would have destroyed his plans utterly. You would have gone to your friends--to Miss Plympton--and you would have found out things about him which would have made his projects with reference to you out of the question.”