Dorothy's Double Volume Iii Part 2

CHAPTER XVIII

Mr. Singleton had gone out for a stroll after breakfast with Dorothy and Ada Fortescue. Mrs. Fortescue was with Clara, who had come down to breakfast for the first time and was now lying down for a bit as a preparation for going for a short drive later on. Mr. Hawtrey was smoking a cigar in front of the hotel with Mr. Fortescue, intending to follow the girls and Mr. Singleton after the post came in. After half an hour's waiting the bag for the hotel was brought in.

'They are princ.i.p.ally yours, Fortescue,' Mr. Hawtrey said, as the clerk sorted them over. 'The inquiries after Clara's health must have materially benefited the postal revenue. As you are not coming I will put those four for Ada in my pocket. There is nothing for either of the others, and only one for me. I know what its contents are without opening it.'

Putting the five letters into his pocket, he strolled down the village.

He knew exactly where he should find the others, as they almost always took their seat in a nook sheltered completely from the wind and exposed to the full rays of the sun.

'I suppose I had better look at the letter,' he said to himself. 'I would rather Danvers did not write so often. Dorothy looks up inquiringly whenever the post comes in, and I would rather say "No letter to-day," than to have to say, "There is a letter from Danvers, Dorothy, but he sends no news whatever." It comes to the same thing, no doubt, but no letter might mean that they had got some little clue and meant following it up. At any rate, she does not look so disappointed as when I tell her that there is a letter with nothing in it.'

'Hulloa!' he exclaimed, as he opened it, 'this is a much more lengthy epistle.' The first line or two were sufficient to cause him to burst into something like a shout of joy. They ran:--'I am delighted to be able to give you the good news that the existence and whereabouts of the man and the counterfeit of Miss Hawtrey have been ascertained without a doubt. Hampton was right when he considered they would probably have made off to the United States directly they had secured their plunder. I received a letter from him this morning. Unfortunately I have been away shooting for a week, and it has been lying unopened since the day I left.' Then followed a copy of Captain Hampton's letter, together with copies of the various affidavits.

'These prove practically all we require. I have been round with them to Charles Levine. He is very much gratified, and says that he considers this testimony should be ample to enable us to defend any action on the part of Gilliat. He thinks the best plan will be to place Captain Hampton's letter and the depositions before Gilliat and say that we are prepared to defend the action and to bring over all these people as witnesses. Of course, it would be more satisfactory to have the adventuress and her accomplice in the dock or to produce their written confession. Such is evidently Hampton's opinion also. You see he has started for New Orleans and says he shall follow them if he has to cross the continent. This, however, I have not copied, as he has put that on a separate piece of paper and marked it private and confidential. From something he said to me the day before he started I imagine he has for some reason or other an objection to Miss Hawtrey's knowing that he is working on her behalf.

'You see, in the early part of the letter, which he thought would be sent to you, and doubtless shown to her, he treats the discovery he has made as a purely accidental matter, although he told me that he intended to make it his sole business to hunt them down, if it took him six months to do so. However, when he wrote he was certainly on the point of starting for New Orleans, and I own that I consider his undertaking to be a somewhat perilous one. This fellow must be a thorough-paced ruffian, and he will find no difficulty in getting together any number of reckless men who would, if they found he was in danger of arrest, hesitate at nothing. Of course, if he goes farther west his errand will be still more difficult. Hampton is so thoroughly good a fellow that I should feel grieved indeed did anything befall him.'

Mr. Hawtrey thrust the letter and enclosure into his pocket and hurried on; he hesitated for a moment, as he remembered that Ada Fortescue was with his daughter, but he said to himself, 'She is a good girl and a great friend of Dorothy's; we can trust her to hold her tongue--besides, we need not go much into the past.'

'Why, you've been running, father?'

'No, my dear, no; but I am a little excited over a letter I have just received. It is a family matter, Ada, but I know Dorothy will not wish you to go away, for I am sure we can trust you with our little secret.'

'Have you news, father?' Dorothy asked, springing to her feet. 'News about that?'

'Yes, dear; but first I must tell your friend that some tradesmen have been robbed by a person so strongly resembling you that she deceived even those that knew you well. The matter was so serious that we have had a number of detectives searching for this woman, as only by her being found could we prove that the orders for these goods were not given by you. Having told her that much I can go on with my news.

'They have been found, Dorothy. Thank G.o.d they have been found!'

The girl threw her arms round her father's neck and burst into a pa.s.sion of tears. Hitherto she had had nothing but her consciousness of innocence to support her. Until the suggestion had been made by Captain Hampton that some one had impersonated her, she had been in a state of complete bewilderment, and even this hypothesis seemed to her to be improbable in the extreme. Still as her father and Mr. Singleton had accepted it, she, too, had clung to it, but with less real hope than they had entertained, that it might prove to be true.

As the weeks had pa.s.sed by without any shadow of proof that such a person existed being forthcoming, she had more than once told herself that she would have to pa.s.s all her life with this dark cloud over her.

A few close friends might believe in her, but when the story was whispered about, as sooner or later it would be sure to be, everyone else would hold aloof from her. She had been feeling that morning in lower spirits than usual. Captain Armstrong had left early, and she was deeply sorry for him, more sorry for him than for herself. She had slept but little that night, and had come to the conclusion that were this weight ever removed and were he ever to ask her again, her life would be a happy one with him, even though she did not feel for him more than a very real liking. The sudden announcement of a fact she herself had begun to doubt, for a time completely upset her, and her father at last said, 'I will leave you here for a few minutes with your friend, Dorothy, and will stroll away with Singleton. By the time we return you will be able to listen calmly to the story.'

When they had gone a short distance away from the girls, he placed the copies of the letters and depositions in Mr. Singleton's hands.

'Hampton!' the latter exclaimed, as soon as he glanced over the first line or two; 'I am glad indeed. Let us sit down on that rock over there; the news is too pleasant to be lost by not being able to read it distinctly.'

'Well, Hawtrey, I congratulate you,' he said, when he had finished.

'Those letters are sufficient to prove to any unprejudiced person that Dorothy has been perfectly innocent throughout the whole business. It is a pity the birds had flown before Hampton arrived there. Even putting everything else aside, I would have given something to see that woman who humbugged me so completely. What will our young lady say now when she hears that it is Hampton who has thus cleared her? By the way, he writes as if it were a mere accident, his having discovered them.'

'I fancy he writes in that style because he has no doubt that she will see the letter. There is the letter Danvers sent me with the enclosure.

Hampton seems to be just as obstinate about the matter as Dorothy is.'

Mr. Singleton read the letter with many grunts of disapprobation.

'Why couldn't he be satisfied with what he has done?' he exclaimed, when he had finished the letter. 'He had got enough evidence to satisfy any reasonable people; now he must needs go chasing them all over America, and as likely as not get shot for his pains. Why didn't he write over and ask whether that was not sufficient?'

'Because if he had done so, Singleton, he might never have been able to pick up the clue again. The evidence he has got may not be absolutely conclusive, but undoubtedly it will be very valuable. These affidavits prove conclusively that there was on a certain day a woman staying in a New York Hotel who was so like Dorothy that my daughter's portrait was believed by several people who had seen the woman to be hers. It could also be proved that she and the man with her had just come from Hamburg.

But you see it does not in any way connect this woman with the robbery.

There is the weak point of the business. The evidence is enough, as you say, to convince reasonable people; but as these shopmen are all ready to swear to Dorothy, the fact that we have found a woman exactly like her, but whom we cannot produce, is scarcely a satisfactory proof from a legal point of view that she is innocent. However, we can talk that over presently; we had better join the others; Dorothy will be wanting to hear the news. Be careful what you say; we may both think that Ned Hampton's views are foolish, but we are bound to respect them.'

Mr. Singleton made no reply, and mentally resolved that if it were necessary he would speak about it, whether or no.

'I am not going to see the young fool throw away his chances like that,'

he said to himself; 'he does not know what has been going on here--that Dorothy has been within an ace of accepting some one else. All this foolery of his shows that he really cares for her. If he had not done so he would simply have laughed at her nonsense.'

They met the girls coming towards them.

'You have been an unconscionable time, father, I am burning with impatience to know how it has all come about.'

'Those papers will tell you, Dorothy. One is an extract from a letter written to Mr. Danvers by Ned Hampton, the others are copies of affidavits sworn in New York.'

Dorothy changed colour. She had been thinking of her former friend that night, and had very reluctantly come to the conclusion that she had been unduly hard upon him. She had asked Captain Armstrong what he would have thought had he seen her as Ned Hampton had supposed that he had done, and in spite of his love for her and his absolute confidence in her word, Captain Armstrong had admitted that he should at first have come to exactly the same conclusion--namely, that she had got into a sc.r.a.pe.

She had not felt either hurt or angry when he admitted this. Why, then, should she have been both in the case of her old playfellow? The question was altogether an unwelcome one, and she had dismissed it as speedily as possible, but the name coming upon her now so suddenly and unexpectedly had almost startled her. In some anger against herself for the involuntary flush, she took the papers and prepared to read them much more deliberately than she would otherwise have done.

However, her eyes ran over the lines more rapidly as she read on, and when she finished she exclaimed--

'What a wonderful piece of good fortune! It seems quite providential that Captain Hampton should have taken a fancy to go out to America, and should have inquired when he went through New York if this man and woman had lately arrived. He seems to have managed wonderfully well; it was lucky he got such a clever detective as the person he speaks of. Really, father, I feel very grateful to him.'

'So I think you ought to,' Mr. Hawtrey said somewhat sharply, 'considering that he has done what all the detectives in London have failed to do, even aided by the police all over the Continent, and has gone a long way towards lifting a cloud, which, if it had not been for him, would have darkened your whole life.'

'I quite feel that, father; I have been thinking that over while you have been away, and have told Ada that no words can express what a relief it is to me. Of course, I am very, very grateful to Captain Hampton; it was very good of him, indeed, to think of me, and to take such trouble about me. What shall we have to do next?'

'That must depend upon what the lawyers say, Dorothy; I almost wish that we had been going back to London, so as to talk it over with them personally.'

'Why shouldn't we go, father? I am feeling quite well again now, and am wanting very much to be home again. I would infinitely rather do that than go to Italy. The Fortescues are talking of starting in a couple of days, why should we not all go back together?'

'I will think it over, my dear. Now, I think you had better be getting back to the hotel; the sun has gone in and the clouds are half-way down the mountains. I think that we are going to have another snowstorm, so you and Ada had better hurry. You have had experience of the suddenness with which storms come on here.'

'I suppose this was why you would give no answer yesterday?' Ada Fortescue said, as the two girls walked briskly back toward Chamounix, followed more leisurely by Mr. Hawtrey and his friend.

'Yes, partly, Ada.'

'What a pity the news did not come a day sooner.'

'I don't know, Ada, I really had not made up my mind. You see, all along I have been feeling that I could never get engaged again, and so I had an answer ready, and had not thought it over as I should have done otherwise. There is a snowflake. Do let us hurry, so as to be in before it begins in earnest.'

Ada did not see the snowflake, but she saw that her companion wanted to change the subject, and nothing more was said till they reached the hotel, just as the snow was really beginning to fall.

Dorothy remained for some time in her room. She was dissatisfied with herself for not feeling more elated at the discovery that had been made.

It was everything to her, she told herself; the greatest event of her life; and yet, after the first burst of joy, it had not made her as happy as it should have done.

It was tiresome that it should have been made by Captain Hampton. She had requested him not to interfere farther in her affairs. He had done so, and with success.