His troubled look filled her with sympathy, but she could not
help being glad afresh that he had escaped the snares laid for
him. He looked at her searchingly, and at last murmured a request
that she would allow him to have a little conversation with her.
She led the way to her parlor, closed the door, and asked him to
take a seat. But Godfrey was too proud or too agitated to sit.
"You will be surprised to see me on such an errand, Miss
Marston!" he said.
"I do not yet know your errand," replied Mary; "but I may not be
so much surprised as you think."
"Do not imagine," said Godfrey, stiffly, "that I believe a word
of the contemptible reports in circulation. I come only to ask
you to tell me the real nature of the accusations brought against
Miss Yolland: your name is, of course, coupled with them."
"Mr. Wardour," said Mary, "if I thought you would believe what I
told yon, I would willingly do as you ask me. As it is, allow me
to refer you to Mr. Brett, the lawyer, whom I dare say you know."
Happily, the character of Mr. Brett was well known in Testbridge
and all the country round; and from him Godfrey Wardour learned
what sent him traveling on the Continent again--not in the hope
of finding Sepia. What became of her, none of her family ever
learned.
Some time after, it came out that the same night on which the
presence of Joseph rescued Mary from her pursuer, a man speaking
with a foreign accent went to one of the surgeons in Testbridge
to have his shoulder set, which he said had been dislocated by a
fall.
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