"Not very happy? I should think not indeed! Oh, Doris!" The last words were said very low, as Bernard turned his head away for a few moments.
"She looked miserable, sir. I’m thinking it was only for a home and support that she was thinking of marriage."
"But she wouldn’t sell herself for that!" exclaimed Bernard.
"And then it was such a grievous thing, sir, that you didn’t write to her. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick. And very sick at heart my poor dear young lady was, many and many a time, while she was looking for the post bringing her a letter, in the days before she got engaged to Mr. Sinclair."
"But I did write! I wrote many more letters than I received from her. I never heard from her after the first week."
"Then there has been foul play, sir, somewhere! Letters have been stopped, and have got into the wrong hands before to-day."
Bernard knew well who must have been the culprit. His mother had wronged and sinned against him in a way which would be hard to forgive. She had done all she possibly could to destroy his happiness in this world. But he told himself that he must not waste time in thinking of that just now; he would hasten to Doris and have a talk with her.
"Do you say she is at Hampstead?" he inquired, hastily.
"She went there with Miss Sinclair, but they are not there now, sir. They have gone to the seaside somewhere, for the benefit of Miss Anderson’s health."
"Gone!" cried Bernard. "To the seaside! What seaside? Where?"
"I don’t know, sir. They’ll tell you at--Steele’s Road, Hampstead."
"I’ll go there at once. You’ve been a good friend to Miss Anderson. Allow me," and he pressed a sovereign into the landlady’s hand, and hurried out of the house.
In the shortest possible time he was at Hampstead, inquiring at Steele’s Road for Miss Anderson’s address. Mr. Sinclair happened to be out--which Bernard thought was just as well for him; but the servant being under the impression that his master was somewhere about the house, Bernard was shown up into the studio. There, as he waited, he perceived more than one painting in which Doris’s fair sweet face was beautifully delineated. The sight of it there, however, only maddened her unhappy lover. What right had the fellow to make Doris’s loveliness so common? What right had he to possess the presentment of it there? By the power of his strong will and helped by his riches he had prevailed upon the lonely girl to promise him her hand in marriage. In the absence of her own true lover he had stolen her from him. But a Nemesis had come, was coming indeed; and when Doris saw her Bernard and spoke with him, face to face, she would throw over the usurper, and matters would be readjusted as happily, nay, more happily, than if this engagement had not occurred.