For a while I gave
myself up to the delight, kissing it and crying over it like a mad
creature. Then I came back to the cold light of facts. Just four days
now to elapse before my wedding-day. What could happen in those four
days to save me? Anthony's messenger, nay, Anthony himself, could do
nothing. There was always my grandfather's face of suspense, by which I
knew he counted the hours, always my grandmother's piteous air of asking
for forgiveness. Not even Anthony Cardew could absolve me from what they
bound me to.
I tried to be sorry for having written him that letter. Nothing, indeed,
had been farther from my thoughts than that it should be forwarded to
him. He wrote from Assumption, an island in the South Seas. If he was by
my side he could hardly save me, unless he could prove that Uncle Luke
was innocent of the things Garret Dawson attributed to him and could
prove it to the world. And how could he do that?
I had never asked what the secret was, feeling that it must be something
very terrible indeed when my grandfather would not tell it to Miss
Champion. I never meant to ask. Let the proof of it be given up and
forgotten. There was even a certain dreary pleasure in feeling that I
was going to save the Lord and Lady St.
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