"But you will not stay here?"
"No;--I shall not stay here. I must use myself to solitude, but the solitude of London is unendurable. I shall go back to c.u.mberland if I can find a home there. The mountains will remind me of the days which, sad as they were, were less sad than the present. I little dreamed then when I had gained everything my loss would be so great as it has been. Was the Earl there?"
"At our marriage? Oh yes, he was there."
"I shall ask him to do me a kindness. Perhaps he will let me live at Lovel Grange?"
When the meeting was over Lady Anna returned to her husband overwhelmed with tears. She was almost broken-hearted when she asked herself whether she had in truth been cruel to her mother. But she knew not how she could have done other than she had done. Her mother had endeavoured to conquer her by hard usage,--and had failed. But not the less her heart was very sore. "My dear," said the tailor to her, "hearts will be sore. As the world goes yet awhile there must be injustice; and sorrow will follow."
When they had been gone from London about a month the Countess wrote to her cousin the Earl and told him her wishes. "If you desire to live there of course there must be an end of it. But if not, you might let the old place to me. It will not be as if it were gone out of the family. I will do what I can for the people around me, so that they may learn not to hate the name of Lovel."
The young lord told her that she should have the use of the house as long as she pleased,--for her lifetime if it suited her to live there so long. As for rent,--of course he could take none after all that had been done for him. But the place should be leased to her so that she need not fear to be disturbed. When the spring time came, after the sailing of the vessel which took the tailor and his wife off to the Antipodes, Lady Lovel travelled down with her maid to c.u.mberland, leaving London without a friend to whom she could say adieu. And at Lovel Grange she took up her abode, amidst the old furniture and the old pictures, with everything to remind her of the black tragedy of her youth, when her husband had come to her and had told her, with a smile upon his lips and scorn in his eye, that she was not his wife, and that the child which she bore would be a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Over his wicked word she had at any rate triumphed. Now she was living there in his house the unquestioned and undoubted Countess Lovel, the mistress of much of his wealth, while still were living around her those who had known her when she was banished from her home. There, too often with ill-directed generosity, she gave away her money, and became loved of the poor around her. But in the way of society she saw no human being, and rarely went beyond the valley in which stood the lonely house to which she had been brought as a bride.
Of the further doings of Mr. Daniel Thwaite and his wife Lady Anna,--of how they travelled and saw many things; and how he became perhaps a wiser man,--the present writer may, he hopes, live to tell.