The Living Link | Page 9

and was shocked to see the changes that had been made in her by that one night. She did not regard so much the pallor of her face, the languor of her manner, and her unelastic step, but rather the new expression that appeared upon her countenance, the thoughtfulness of her brow, the deep and earnest abstraction of her gaze. In that one night she seemed to have stepped from girlhood to maturity. It was as though she had lived through the intervening experience. Years had been crowded into hours. She was no longer a school-girl--she was a woman.
Miss Plympton soon retired, with the promise to come again when Edith should feel stronger. Breakfast was sent up, and taken away untasted, and at noon Miss Plympton once more made her appearance.
"I have been thinking about many things," said Edith, after some preliminary remarks, "and have been trying to recall what I can of my own remembrance of papa. I was only eight years old, but I have a pretty distinct recollection of him, and it has been strengthened by his portrait, which I always have had. Of my mother I have a most vivid remembrance, and I have never forgotten one single circumstance connected with her last illness. I remember your arrival, and my departure from home after all was over. But there is one thing which I should like very much to ask you about. Did none of my mother's relatives come to see her during this time?"
"Your mother's relatives acted very badly indeed, dear. From the first they were carried away by the common belief in your dear father's guilt. Some of them came flying to your mother. She was very ill at the time, and these relatives brought her the first news which she received. It was a severe blow. They were hard-hearted or thoughtless enough to denounce your father to her, and she in her weak state tried to defend him. All this produced so deplorable an effect that she sank rapidly. Her relatives left her in this condition. She tried to be carried to your dear father in his prison, but could not bear the journey. They took her as far as the gates, but she fainted there, and had to be taken back to the house. So then she gave up. She knew that she was going to die, and wrote to me imploring me to come to her. She wished to intrust you to me. I took you from her arms--"
Miss Plympton paused, and Edith was silent for some time.
"So," said she, in a scarce audible voice, "darling mamma died of a broken heart?"
Miss Plympton, said nothing. A long silence followed.
"Had my father no friends," asked Edith, "or no relatives?"
"He had no relatives," said Miss Plympton, "but an only sister. She married a Captain Dudleigh, now Sir Lionel Dudleigh. But it was a very unhappy marriage, for they separated. I never knew the cause; and Captain Dudleigh took it so much to heart that he went abroad. He could not have heard of your father's misfortunes till all was over and it was too late. But in any case I do not see what he could have done, unless he had contrived to shake your father's resolve. As to his wife, I have never heard of her movements, and I think she must have died long ago. Neither she nor her husband is mentioned at the trial. If they had been in England, it seems to me that they would have come forward as witnesses in some way; so I think they were both out of the country. Sir Lionel is alive yet, I think, but he has always lived out of the world. I believe his family troubles destroyed his happiness, and made him somewhat misanthropical. I have sometimes thought in former years that he might make inquiries about you, but he has never done so to my knowledge, though perhaps he has tried without being able to hear where you were. After all, he would scarcely know where to look. On the whole, I consider Sir Lionel the only friend you have, Edith darling, besides myself, and if any trouble should ever arise, he would be the one to whom I should apply for assistance, or at least advice."
Edith listened to this, and made no comment, but after another thoughtful pause she said,
"About this Wiggins--have you ever heard any thing of him since the--the trial?"
Miss Plympton shook her head.
"No," said she, "except from those formal business notes. You have seen them all, and know what they are."
"Have you ever formed any opinion of him more favorable than what you wrote in those notes?"
"I do not think that I wrote any thing more than suspicions or surmises," said Miss Plympton; "and as