CHAPTER XXXIX.

A MOTHER'S CONFESSION.

"I come now to a part of my story," resumed Lady Estelle, "that I would fain pass over in silence; but as it touches the matter that brought me here, I am obliged to tell you."

The proud, fair woman buried her face in her hands as she spoke, and Earle understood how terrible was the struggle between her need of help and her pride. When she raised her face again, it was ghastly white.

"Captain Studleigh had been gone four months," she gasped, "when I knew that the most terrible of all my trials had come to me--that I should be the mother of a child. For a long time--for days and weeks--I was in the most terrible despair. I often wonder," she said, musingly, "how it was that the agony of my shame did not kill me--I cannot understand it even now. I did think in those days of killing myself, but I was not brave enough--I lacked the courage. Yet I do not think any one in the wide world ever suffered so greatly. There was I--sole daughter of that ancient house; flattered, beloved, courted, _feted_, the envy of all who knew me--with a secret bitter as death, black as sin. At last, when I found myself obliged to seek assistance, I went to Lady Agnes Delapain, and told her all.

"Her amazement and dread of the consequences were at first appalling to me. After the first expressions of surprise and regret, she said:

"'So you were married to him--married to him all the time? I never suspected it.'

"She was very kind to me--kinder, a thousand times, than I deserved. She did not reproach me; but when she had recovered, she said:

"'Estelle, I feel that it is more than half my fault--I should never have allowed you to meet him here. I should not have dared if I had foreseen the end. I felt sorry, because you seemed to like each other; but I have done wrong.'

"I laid my head on her shoulder.

"'What am I to do?' I moaned.

"'I see no help for it now, Estelle; however averse you may be, you must tell the duchess.'

"Then I clung to her, weeping and saying:

"'I dare not--I would rather die.'

"'But, my dear Estelle,' she interrupted, 'you must--indeed, you must. I see no help for it.'

"I remember standing up with a white, haggard face and beating heart.

"'If you will not help me, Agnes, I must tell her, but I shall do it in my own fashion. I shall write a letter to her, and kill myself before she receives it. I will never look my mother in the face again after she knows.'

"'Then what is to be done, Estelle?'

"'Be my friend, as you have always been. You have had more experience than I have had: you know the world better than I know it. You are older than I am; help me, Agnes.'

"'You mean, help you to keep the secret of your marriage?' she asked.

"'I do; and in asking you that, I ask for my life itself--the one depends upon the other.'

"Lady Agnes sat quite silent for some minutes, then she said:

"'I will do it, Estelle. Perhaps, in making this promise, I am wrong, as I am in everything else; but I will help you for the sake of the love that was between us when we were happy young girls.'

"I had no words in which to thank her; it really seemed to me as though the burden of my trouble were for the time removed from me to her.

"'How will it be?' I asked her.

"'Give me time to think, Estelle; I must arrange it all in my own mind first. Do not come near me for three days.'

"At the end of that time my mother received a letter from Lady Agnes, urging her to allow me to go with her to Switzerland; she was not strong, and required change of air. My mother had implicit faith and confidence in Lady Delapain.

"'You have not been looking well lately, Estelle,' she said to me; 'it will do you good to go.'

"Ah, me! what a weight those few words took from my mind. Then Lady Agnes called upon us, and spoke to my mother about our little tour.

"'We shall enjoy ourselves after our own fashion,' she said. 'Lord Delapain goes with us as far as Interlachen; there he will leave us for a time. You may safely trust Lady Estelle with me.'

"My mother had not the slightest idea that anything was unusual. The only thing that embarrassed me was that she insisted upon my taking my maid Leeson with me. When I told this to Lady Agnes, she was, like myself, dismayed for a few minutes, then she said, calmly;

"'It will not matter; we should have been obliged to take some one into our confidence; as well Leeson as another. We must tell her of the marriage.'

"So it was all settled; and I, taking my terrible secret with me, went abroad. There is no need to linger over the details. No suspicion of the truth was ever whispered. We took Leeson into our confidence, and my baby was born in Switzerland. Ah! you look astonished. Now you know why I am here--Doris is my child!"

Earle was too bewildered for one moment to speak. Then a low cry of wonder and dismay came from his lips.

"Doris your daughter!" he repeated. "Lady Hereford, this must be a dream!"

"Would to Heaven it were!" she cried. "It is all most fatally true. Ah! me, if I could but wake up and find it a long, dark dream! When my little daughter was some weeks old, we had a letter which caused us some agitation; my father and mother were on the road to join us, and would be with us in two days. They were then at Berne.

"What shall we do?" I asked again of my clear-headed, trustworthy friend.

"As usual, she was quite ready for the emergency.

"'We must do something decisive at once,' she replied; 'send away the child to England without an hour's delay. I will telegraph to Berne to say that we have already left Interlachen, and shall be at Berne to-morrow.'

"There could be no delay. I sat down to think where it would be possible to send the little one. It seems strange to own such a thing, but I assure you that I did not feel any overwhelming affection for the child. She was lovely as a poet's dream, the fairest little cherub that was ever seen; but already in that infantile face there was a gleam of the Studleigh beauty. 'She will be like her race,' I thought, 'faithless and debonair.' Perhaps the keen anger that I felt against her father, the sorrow and the shame that he had caused me, prevented me from loving her; therefore I did not feel any sorrow at parting with her. I might have been a better woman, Earle Moray, if I had been a happier one.

"I could think of no one. Leeson suggested that if the child be taken by some farmer's wife on the estate, it would be the best thing, as in that case I would see it sometimes, and should, at least, know its whereabouts.

"Then I bethought myself how often I had heard my father speak of honest Mark Brace. The next moment the whole plan came to me. I told Leeson, and she approved of it. You have probably heard the story of the finding of Doris; there is no need for me to repeat it. It was Leeson who left the child at the farmer's gate, and waited under the shadow of the trees until it was taken indoors; it is I who send the money; and I have seen the child twice--once when she was young, and the Studleigh look in her face frightened me, although my heart yearned to her.

"Then the sense of my unhappiness, of my false position, of my terrible secret, made me so wretched that I became seriously ill. My father took me away from England, and I was away many years. I saw her again, not so very long since, and she was one of the loveliest girls that could be imagined, yet still with the Studleigh face--'faithless and debonair.' But this time my heart warmed to her, she was so beautiful, so graceful. I was proud of her, and she told me of _you_; she said she was going to marry Earle Moray, gentleman and poet."

"Heaven bless her!" interrupted Earle, with quivering lips.

"Still," continued Lady Estelle, "I was not quite satisfied: I saw in her her father's faults repeated. My heart found no rest in her, or it would have been misery to lose sight of her again. I did think that when you were married--you and she--I might see more of her. She would be the wife of a poet whom we should all be proud to know.

"Now listen to what I want from you, Earle Moray. In all the wide world; you love Doris best; I want you to find her. Yesterday I heard that her father--my husband--is no longer a penniless younger son; that he has succeeded to the earldom of Linleigh, and will return home. I should have told you that Lady Agnes Delapain died two years after our return from Switzerland, so that no person living knows our secret except Leeson and yourself. Before she died she wrote to my husband to tell him all about Doris. He seems to have extended his indifference even to her, for beyond acknowledging the letter and saying that he really sympathized in my fears, he has never taken the least notice of her. Now, all is different. He will be Earl of Linleigh, she will be Lady Doris Studleigh, and I dare not stand between my child and her rights. Do you understand?"

"No," he replied, quietly, "you could not do that; it would not be honorable."

"So that I must have her here. I will not see him until she is with me. I shall write to him, and beg of him not to come and see me until I send for him. He will do me that small grace, and I shall not send for him until you bring her to me."

"Then you will keep your secret no longer?" said Earle.

"I cannot. If my husband had remained Captain Studleigh, I might have kept it until my death; but, as Earl of Linleigh, he is sure to claim me, either as his wife to live with him, or that he may sue me for a divorce."

"Pardon the question," said Earle, "but would you live with him?"

A dull red flush covered her face.

"If ever I loved anything on earth," she cried, passionately, "it was my husband--I have known no other love."

"What is that you want me to do?" asked Earle.

"I want you to go and find her. No one loves her as you do. Love has keen instincts; you will find her because you love her. Find her--tell her she is the Earl of Linleigh's daughter--that she must come to take her proper position in the great world; but do not tell her who is her mother."

"I will obey you implicitly," he replied.

Then she raised her fair, proud face to his.

"Mine is a strange story, is it not?" she asked.

"Yes--truth is stranger than fiction," he replied.

"And it is a shameful story, is it not?" she continued.

"It is not a good one," he said, frankly.

She smiled at the honest reply.

"You do not know," she said, "how my heart has turned to you since Doris spoke of the 'gentleman and poet.' Aristocrat as I am, I do not think any man could have a grander title. To your honor, as a gentleman, I trust my secret--you will never betray it."

He bowed low.

"I would rather die," he said.

"I believe you implicitly. This time, at least, my instinct has not failed me--I am safe in trusting you. Now, tell me, have you the faintest clew as to where Doris has gone?"

"Not the smallest; she has gone abroad--that is all I know."

"Then do you also go abroad. Remember that no money, no trouble, no toil must be spared--she must be found. Go first to France--to the cities most frequented by the English--then to Italy. For Heaven's sake, find her, and bring her back to Brackenside. When she is once here I can bear the rest. You will not fail me. Write as often as you can; and Heaven speed you."

He felt his own hand clasped in hers; then she placed a roll of bank-notes in it. The next moment she was gone, and Earle sat there alone, breathless with surprise.