"Susan," I said, meaning to let her down gently, "I hope it isn't one of those young artists from London? An artist is interesting; but he's too impulsive, too vain, too unreliable. I hope----"
"Oh, no, Miss," said Susan hurriedly. "It isn't any of the young gentlemen that's doing the painting and decorating."
"Whoever he is," I answered, "he makes himself at home with Lord Ruddington's best stationery. Let me see."
I turned over the sheet and looked for the signature. Half-way down the third page I found it. The writer had signed himself with the single word "Ruddington."
"Susan," I demanded almost roughly, "why didn't you tell me about this at once?"
"There's no if you please about it. Why, this creature, whoever he may be, is pretending to be Lord Ruddington."
Susan burst out crying, suddenly and copiously.
"Oh, Miss Gertrude," she sobbed; "I--I never thought it was pretending. I never dreamed any one could be so cruel. I thought it was real."
As I had begun to read the letter, I didn't take much notice. But Susan sobbed and talked on.
"Oh, Miss," she moaned, "to think I was nearly going to post the answer! I should never have been able to look the parish in the face again."
"Keep quiet, Susan," I said irritably. "Let me read it through."
And while Susan cried to herself softly, I read it straight through; turned back again and again to sentences here and there; and at last read it from beginning to end once more. This is what I read:--
I discard the ordinary forms of beginning because this is an extraordinary letter.
Since I came to Ruddington last Wednesday, I have seen you three times. For the second and for the third times, I am thankful; but the first sufficed to open my eyes to the truth. There is not now, and cannot ever be anywhere, any woman in the world save you whom I shall seek for a wife.
Although I did not need to ponder this step for more than a moment on my own account, I have considered it long and well on yours. I recognize the many and great difficulties in the way; but not one of them is insurmountable.
The person from whom I have learned your name and address has not the faintest notion of what is in my mind.
If your answer must be that I am too late, or that you feel you could not establish my happiness without losing your own, no third party need ever know that this has passed between us. But if your affection is still yours to give, then I shall beg for the earliest possibility of trying to convince you that, in bestowing it upon me, you would at least not be throwing it away on some one fickle or ungrateful, or wilfully unworthy.