I will tell you, upon my word, exactly what the
impression is that it all makes upon my mind."
Wilton had not spoken of their love; Laura had not mentioned the
subject either; but they had done fully as much, they had referred to
it as a thing known and acknowledged. Wilton had recalled words that
had made him very happy, and Laura had spoken of hopes which could
only apply to her union with himself.
He now, however, told her all that had occurred, briefly though
clearly. He dwelt not, indeed, on his own feelings during the painful
events lately past; but the few words that he did speak on that
subject were of such a kind as to show Laura instantly the distress
and anxiety which her disappearance had caused him, the agony that he
had suffered when he thought that she was lost to him for ever. The
whole of her father's conduct, as displayed by Wilton, seemed to her
strange and unaccountable; and well it might do so! for her lover
told her the terrible state of mind in which the Duke had been at
first, and yet he did not think fit to explain, in any degree, the
causes which he felt sure had prevented her father from joining in
the search himself. Notwithstanding all that had taken place in the
presence of Laura, he judged it far better to avoid any mention of
the unfortunate hold which Sir John Fenwick had obtained over the
Duke, by drawing him in to take a share, however small, in the great
Jacobite conspiracy of the day.
Laura, then, was greatly surprised at all she heard; and that Wilton
should be employed in the affair seemed to her not the least strange
part of the whole business. An expression of this surprise, however,
induced Wilton to add, what he still in some degree feared, and had
long hesitated to say.
"I do not, indeed, believe, dear Laura," he said, "that your father
would have trusted me so entirely in this business, if it had not
been for some words concerning myself which were spoken to him by
Lord Byerdale when I was not present. They were repeated to me
afterwards by Sherbrooke, and were to the effect, that although, in
consequence of some of the late unfortunate disturbances in the
country--the rebellions, the revolutions, the changes of dynasties
that have happened within the last twenty years--it was necessary to
conceal my birth and station, yet my blood was as pure and ancient as
that of your father himself. This, I think, made a change in all his
feelings towards me."
Wilton felt the small rounded fingers of Laura's hand rest,