well,” purred Mrs. Mordaunt good-humoredly, looking down to stroke the toy Pom on her lap, a nervous little animal which one might have wrapped in a handkerchief, “I will say no more. If the thought of allowing myself to be bereft of you has occurred to me, you understand for whose good I gave it a moment’s entertainment. Marriage, of course, is a change of life, and for girls whose minds have been overshadowed by sorrow, it may not be altogether a bad thing.”
“But there is usually some selection in the matter, I think, some pretense of preference for one above others. Just marriage by itself hardly seems a goal.”
“Yes, love is good, dear – none knows better than I – but better marriage without love, than love without marriage,” muttered Mrs. Mordaunt, suddenly shaken.
“And better still life with neither, it seems to me; and best of all, the end of life, and good-by to it all, mother.”
“Vi, Vi! sh-h-h, dear!” Mrs. Mordaunt was so genuinely shocked that her daughter swung the talk back into its personal channel.
“Still, I will not see this man. Tell him when he comes that I will not see him. He has held out to me hopes which he has done nothing to fulfil.”
“What hopes, dear?”
“You may as well know: hopes as to – Gwen, then.”
“Tell me.”
“Twice he has hinted to me that he knows some one who knew the man named Strauss; that he would succeed in finding this Strauss; that all was quite, quite well; and that he did not despair of finding some trace of the whereabouts of the child. He had no right to say such things, if he had not some real grounds for believing that he would do as he hinted. It is two months ago now since he last spoke in this way down at Rigsworth, and he has not referred to it since, though he has several times been alone with me. I believe that he only said it because he fancied that whatever man held out such hopes to me would be likely to find me pliant to his wishes. I won’t see him to-day.”
“Oh, he said that, did he – that all was quite well, that he might be able to find… But he must have meant it, since he said it.”
“I doubt now that he meant it. Who knows whether he is not in league with the enemies of her who was cast helpless to the wolves – ”
“Violet, for shame to let such words escape your lips! Mr. Van Hupfeldt – a man of standing and position, presented to us by Lord Vanstone, and moving in the highest circles! Oh, beware, dear, lest sorrow warp the gentler instincts of your nature, and by the sadness of the countenance the heart be not made better! Grief is evil, then, indeed when it does not win us into a sweeter mood of charity. I fear, Vi, that you have lost something of your old amiableness since the blow.”
“Forgive me, darling!” sobbed Violet, dropping quickly by the side of her mother’s chair, with her eyes swimming. “It has gone deep, this wild wrong. Forgive, forgive! I wish to feel and do right; but I can’t. It is the fault of the iron world.”
“No, don’t cry, sweet,” murmured Mrs. Mordaunt, kissing her warmly. “It will come right. We must repress all feelings of rebellion and rancor, and pray often, and in the end your good heart will find its way back to its natural sweetness and peace. I myself too frequently give way, I’m afraid; the ways of Providence are so inscrutably hard. We must bear up, and wait, and wait, till ‘harsh grief pass in time into far music.’ As for Mr. Van Hupfeldt, there seems no reason why you should see him, if you do not wish. But you haven’t opened your letter – see if it is from Rigsworth, dear.”
Violet now rose from her mother’s side, and tore open the letter. She did not know the handwriting, and as her eyes fell on the words she started. They were these: “A well-wisher of Miss Mordaunt desires to assure her that it is a pretty certain thing that her sister Gwendoline was a duly wedded wife. The proofs of this statement may sooner or later be forthcoming.”
Mrs. Mordaunt’s observant glance, noting the changes of color and expression going on in her daughter’s face, saw that the news was really as Mrs. Harrod had dreamed. Violet’s eyes were raised in silent thanksgiving, and, without saying anything, she dropped the note on her mother’s lap. Going to one of the windows, she stood there with tremulous lips. She looked into the dim street through a mist of tears. For the moment, speech was impossible.
There was silence in the room for some minutes. Then Mrs. Mordaunt called out: “Vi, dear, come here.”
Violet ran from the window with a buoyancy of dancing in her gait. “Heaven forgive us, mother, for having wronged Gwendoline in our thoughts!” said she, with her cheek against her mother’s.
“Heaven forgive me rather,” said Mrs. Mordaunt. “You, dear, have never for a moment lost faith and hope. But still, Vi – ”
“Well?”
“Let me warn you, dear, against too much confidence in this note. The disappointment may be all the more terrible. Why could not the sender sign his name? Of course, we can guess from whom it comes; but does not the fact that he does not sign his name show a lack of confidence in his own statements?”
“Oh, I think not,” cried Violet, flushed with enthusiasm, “if it is from whom you think; but, who, then, do you think sent it?”
“It can only be from Mr. Van Hupfeldt, child, I take it.”
The girl was seemingly taken aback for an instant; but her thoughts bubbled forth again rapidly: “Well, his motive for not signing his name may simply be a very proper reserve, not a lack of confidence in his statements. Remember, dearest, that he is coming here to-day with a certain purpose with regard to me, and if he had signed his name, it would have set up a sort of claim to my favor as a reward for services done. Oh, now I come to think of it, I call this most generous of the man!”
“That’s splendid, that’s right,” said Mrs. Mordaunt. “Your instincts always scent out nobility where any clue to it can be found. I am glad that you take it in that way. But young people are enthusiastic and prone to jump to conclusions. As we grow older we acquire a certain habit of second thoughts. In this instance, no doubt, you are right; he could have had no other motive – unless – I suppose that there is no one else from whom the note may possibly have come?”
At this question Violet stood startled a moment, panting a little, and somehow there passed like a mist through her consciousness a memory, a half-thought, of David Harcourt.
“From whom else could it have come?” she asked her mother breathlessly.
“The handwriting is not Mr. Van Hupfeldt’s,” said Mrs. Mordaunt. “This is a less ornate hand, you notice.”
Violet took the note again, and knit her pretty brows over it. “No,” she said, “this is a much stronger, cleaner hand – I don’t know who else – ”
“Yet, if Mr. Van Hupfeldt wished to be generous in the sense of which you spoke,” said her mother, “if it was his purpose to conceal his part in the matter, he would naturally ask some one else to write for him. And, since we can imagine no one but him – There! that, I think, is his rap at the door. Tell me now, Vi, if you will see him alone?”
“Yes, mother, I will see him.”
“Bless you for your good and grateful heart! Well, then, after a little I will go out. But, oh, pray, do nothing precipitate in an impulse of joy and mere gratitude, child! If I am bereft of my two children, I am bereft indeed. Do find happiness, my darling. That first and above
