As for Dolly, she lay sobbing and crying in Sir Anthony’s arms, as though she had always known him. After all, he was her grandfather. Nearer to her in heart and soul than her mother. And the butler could hardly conceal his surprise and amazement when three minutes later Sir Anthony rang the bell, and being discovered alone with a strange young lady in tears, made the unprecedented announcement that he would see no patients at all that morning, and was at home to nobody.
But before Dolly left her new-found relation’s house, it was all arranged between them. She was to come there at once as his adopted daughter; was to take and use the name of Merrick; was to see nothing more of that wicked woman, her mother; and was to be married in due time from Sir Anthony’s house, and under Sir Anthony’s auspices, to Walter Brydges.
She wrote to Walter then and there, from her grandfather’s consulting-room. Numb with shame as she was, she nerved her hand to write to him. In what most delicate language she could find, she let him plainly know who Sir Anthony was, and all else that had happened. But she added at the end one significant clause: “While my mother lives, dear Walter, I feel I can never marry you.”
When she returned from Sir Anthony’s to her mother’s lodgings, she found Herminia, very pale, in the sitting-room, waiting for her. Her eyes were fixed on a cherished autotype of a Pinturicchio at Perugia—Alan’s favourite picture. Out of her penury she had bought it. It represented the Madonna bending in worship over her divine child, and bore the inscription: “_Quem genuit adoravit._” Herminia loved that group. To her it was no mere emblem of a dying creed, but a type of the eternal religion of maternity. The Mother adoring the Child! ’Twas herself and Dolly.
“Well?” Herminia said interrogatively, as her daughter entered, for she half feared the worst.
“Well,” Dolores answered in a defiant tone, blurting it out in sudden jerks, the rebellion of a lifetime finding vent at last. “I’ve been to my grandfather, my father’s father; and I’ve told him everything; and it’s all arranged: and I’m to take his name; and I’m to go and live with him.”
“Dolly!” the mother cried, and fell forward on the table with her face in her hands. “My child, my child, are you going to leave me?”