"You may well do that, Dorothy. Your fortunes, will, indeed, lie far apart. Oh! my child, when I think of all that he has lost, of all that might have been his, it is enough to break my heart." "Mother, I don't understand you." "No, nor is it fit you should. But I see, I know it all. Time will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and when I am in the dust, Dorothy, and you are a great lady, remember how dearly I loved you. Loved you while poor and friendless, and gathered you into my heart as my own." Mrs. Rushmere's head was now resting upon Dorothy's bosom, and she was weeping bitterly. "Mother, I am so sorry I showed you that letter, it has grieved you so much; but I have never kept anything from you. I did not like to conceal my correspondence with the Earl. Do you think it would be improper in me to answer his letter, and accept that money?" "You must do both, Dorothy. You owe him both love and obedience. You have given me your confidence, I will give you mine. I feel certain that you be his daughter." "Mother!" "Whether by marriage or imprudent love, remains yet to be told. But time will prove that I be right." "Ah, how could that poor starved creature be an Earl's wife?" and Dorothy shuddered, as if an arrow had suddenly pierced her heart. "How, indeed?" continued Mrs. Rushmere. "There was a wild story afloat some years agone, of his having seduced a beautiful girl adopted by his mother. She went home to her grandmother in consequence, and the cruel old woman turned her into the streets, an' she was never heard of again--folks did say that she walked into the sea when the tide was coming in, an' destroyed hersel'. No one but God knows." "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."