Dorothy's Double. Volume 3 of 3

'I felt sure you would do so,' she said; 'it is so much the best way, and you cannot tell what a load it is off my mind. Murdoch and I have been talking over the future. He understands that I want to be quite different to what I have been, and he says I may get a clergyman to teach me the things I never learnt, and we will go to church together; I have never been inside a church. I am sure we shall be very happy. He seems as pleased about it as I am. You must always remember, Captain Hampton, that though I have been very bad, I did not know it was wrong, except that I might be put in prison for it. I think I have always tried to do what seemed to be right in a sort of way, only I did not know what really was right.'

'I feel sure you have, Linda; I do not blame you for the past, nor do I think that anyone who knew all the circumstances would do so.'

'Have you heard from England lately?'

'No, I have not heard since I left. Letters have no doubt been sent to places in the East, where I said I might call for them. When I arrived here I wrote to a friend, and according to my calculations I may get his answer any day. I have been hoping for a letter for some little time. Jacob has called at the post office at Sacramento the last three times he has been down there. I am very anxious to hear, and yet you will understand I am half afraid of the news the letter will bring me.'

'I don't think you can have bad news in that way, Ned,' she said. 'I may call you Ned again now, mayn't I? If Dorothy's face does not belie her she can't be likely to get engaged to another man so soon after breaking off her engagement with that lord. Does she know you care for her?'

'No,' he said. 'I don't suppose she ever will. As I told you, we did not part very good friends. She did not forgive me for having doubted her. I think she was perfectly right. I ought never to have doubted her, however much appearances might have been against her.'

'I think it was perfectly natural,' she said indignantly; 'if I could deceive Mr. Singleton, and be talking to him for a quarter of an hour without his suspecting me, it was quite natural that you, who only had a glimpse of me, should have been mistaken.'

'That is true enough,' he said gravely. 'It was natural that I should be mistaken as to her identity, but I ought to have known that, even though it was her, she could not have been, as I supposed, trying to prevent the exposure of some act of folly, when she had over and over again declared she knew nothing whatever of the matter. I was in fact crediting her with being a determined liar, as well as having been mixed up in some foolish business, and it is only right I should be punished for it.'

'If I loved a man,' Linda said stoutly, 'I should forgive him easily enough, even if he had thought I told a lie.'

'Possibly, Linda; but then, you see, though Dorothy and I were great friends, I have no reason in the world to suppose that she did love me, and indeed, at the time she was engaged to be married to some one else.'

Linda shook her head, quite uninfluenced by this argument. She herself had been very near loving Ned Hampton, and she felt convinced that this sister, whom she knew so little about, must be sure to do so likewise, especially when she came to know how much he had done for her.

Captain Hampton smiled.

'You forget, Linda, that your sister is a belle in society; that she had several offers before she accepted Lord Halliburn, and is likely to have had some since. I am a very unimportant personage in her world. In fact, my chances would have been less than nothing if it had not been for my having been so much with her while she was a child, and being a sort of chum of hers, though I was so much older.' There was a movement as of weights being carried into the place, and he broke off. 'I fancy that is Jacob back with the cart. Perhaps he has got a letter for me. Any letters, Jacob?'

'Three of them.'

One was in the handwriting of Danvers, another was in a male handwriting unknown, the other in a female hand which he recognised at once, having received several short notes of invitation and appointment from the writer. With an exclamation of surprise he hurried off to his tent and there opened it. It contained but a few words —

'My dear Ned, – It was very wrong and wicked of you to go away as you did and keep me in the dark. I have read the postscript of your letter to Mr. Danvers. Come back home at once if you wish to obtain the forgiveness of

Dorothy Hawtrey.'

He read it through twice, then his thoughts went back to the letter he had written to Danvers from New Orleans, and as he recalled the postscript he had added, he felt his face flush like a girl's under its tan. He read through the letter again and again, and with an exclamation of deep thankfulness put it and the other letters in his pocket, took up the hat he had thrown down as he entered, and started for a rapid walk up the hill, too excited to remain quiet, and fearing to have the current of his thoughts disturbed even by the entry of Jacob. It was two hours before he returned. He went first to the saloon.

'Would you ask Miss Hawtrey if I can speak to her for a minute, Murdoch?'

'Of course I will. Have you got any good news? You look as if you had.'

'The best I could get. It is about her sister.'

Murdoch nodded pleasantly. 'Everything seems to be turning out well. Linda and I are going to settle down to a quiet life till the right man comes for her, and now you have good news from her sister; this place seems lucky for us all.'

He tapped at Linda's door. 'Captain Hampton wishes to speak to you for a moment.'

The girl came out at once.

'Your letters are good?'

'They are indeed, Linda. Dorothy has written for me to go home to her.'

'I am glad,' she said heartily, holding out her hand to him. 'It would have been a real grief to me, if after all you have done for Dorothy it had not been so. It will be very pleasant to think of you as not only my friend but my brother-in-law, and, as I have seen Dorothy, to be able to picture you in my mind as happy together. Since you were here we have arranged with the store-keeper who has bought the business that he shall take possession to-morrow, and we shall be ready to start in the afternoon if it will suit you to take us down in your waggon.'

'Certainly; nothing could suit me better. You have not been long in making your arrangements.'

'It does not take long in these parts,' Murdoch said; 'we have just signed a receipt for five hundred ounces of gold, being payment for the Eldorado Saloon, its contents and good-will. It was just as simple a matter as for you to sell your share of a claim.'

Jacob was surprised and delighted when, on his master's return, he heard that he had completely achieved the object of their journey, and that Murdoch and Linda were going down with him the next day to Sacramento to have her confession sworn to before a magistrate, and that they should then return at once to England.

'That is first-rate, Captain. I need not go on calling you Ned no longer, which is a thing I never liked, as being disrespectful and altogether wrong. You will keep me with you when you get back, won't you, Captain?'

'Certainly I will, Jacob; as long as I live and you like to stay with me you shall do so; but I must try to get you educated and find a better berth for you than being my servant.'

'I don't want a better berth,' the lad said indignantly; 'I would not be made a harch-bishop, not if they went down on their bended knees to ask me to take the job – not if I could stay with you.'

'Well, I don't suppose you will be tempted that way, Jacob. At any rate, lad, my home will be yours as long as you like to stay with me. We have been friends rather than master and servant ever since we left New Orleans. You nearly lost your life in trying to save mine there, and have all along proved yourself a good and faithful fellow. Now when we have had supper you had better go for a stroll through the camp; I have got two letters to read.'

Danvers' letter, which he first opened, contained nothing of any very great interest. He had seen Mr. Hawtrey, who had only been up in town for a few days, their house having been let for the season, as Mr. Hawtrey told him his daughter, who had been a good deal shaken by an unpleasant adventure they had in Switzerland in the autumn, preferred remaining quietly at home. 'This seems to be altogether in your favour, old fellow. I had heard of the adventure, in which she and two other girls had a narrow escape for their lives. Halliburn was there at the time, and was one of the rescuing party. I saw the particulars copied from a Swiss newspaper, and I was afraid at first that affair might come on again; but it seems he left next day, and there has been no talk about it since, and this staying down in the country instead of coming up for the season quite seems to put a stopper on that. Hawtrey has paid Gilliat for the diamonds. I hope your quest will turn out successful, and that now that you have run them to earth you will get her to confess; though I don't see exactly how you are going to set about it. I shall look anxiously for your next letter.'

The other letter was from Mr. Singleton; it was not a long one. It began, 'My dear Ned, – I write to tell you that Hawtrey has very properly so far disregarded your instructions that, though he kept his promise to the letter by saying nothing, he yielded to Dorothy's insistence and allowed her to read your letter to Danvers, which the latter had forwarded to him. If he had not done so I should have told her all about it myself. I considered all along that you had acted like a young fool, and I should have done what I thought best for you. As it was I can tell you that mischief very nearly came of our holding our tongues. However, things are put straight now; and though Dorothy does not say much I am sure she has been fretting ever since she heard of that affair at New Orleans. My advice to you is to come home at once. Of course, if you have arranged this affair all the better, but I don't anticipate that you will succeed in that. When you get back Hawtrey will write to her and offer her a round sum and a promise that no steps shall ever be taken in the matter if she will sign a confession. You had better get the name and address of some solicitor at Sacramento, to act as Hawtrey's agent in the matter. I have told Dorothy that I am going to write to you, and asked if she had any message to send. She said she had not, but she laughed and coloured, and I should not be at all surprised if you get a note from the young woman at the same time that you receive this. I know she heartily regrets her folly before you went away. I must tell you, my dear boy, that I have made some pecuniary arrangements regarding you; and that if Dorothy is willing to take you, you will meet with no objection on the part of her father.'

There was no necessity to write, for Ned Hampton travelled to England as fast as his letter would have done. He telegraphed his arrival as soon as he landed and followed his message immediately. Ned Hampton always said that his wife married him without his even proposing to her. No proposal indeed was necessary; the matter was settled the moment he went into the room where she was awaiting him, and she ran into his arms without a word. It was not until they were at dinner that the object of Ned's long absence was alluded to. Then, when the servants had left the room, he said, 'I have brought home an engagement present for you, Dorothy,' and he handed her Linda's confession.

Mr. Hawtrey never knew the truth as to the person who had played the part of Dorothy's double, and, contented with his daughter being completely cleared, asked no questions concerning her. Dorothy, however, was much more curious, and was with difficulty put off until she became Mrs. Hampton. She was very pitiful over the story when it was told to her.

'Oh, Ned,' she cried, 'how dreadful; and it might just as well have been I who was carried away and brought up in that misery. Of course, she was not to be blamed. How could she have been different? It is wonderful she should have been as nice as you say she was. Of course, I shall write her a long letter. I don't know about keeping it from father; but perhaps it is best, as she was such a little baby when he lost her, and it would be an awful grief to him to think how she suffered.'

Dorothy wrote very frequently, and letters came back telling of Linda's quiet, happy life; but Dorothy was not fully contented until three years later she learned that her sister had married a thriving young settler on a neighbouring farm, and that there was every prospect that the trials and troubles of her early life would be atoned for by happiness in the future.

The year after Dorothy's marriage she was delighted to hear from Ada Fortescue that she had become engaged to Captain Armstrong, and she and Ned went up to town specially to be present at the wedding.

Years afterwards the sisters met, for after Mr. Hawtrey's death nothing would satisfy Dorothy but a voyage across the Atlantic, and a journey by the newly constructed line to California. The likeness between the sisters had increased, for the hard look in Linda's face had died away, and had been succeeded by one of quiet happiness, and Captain Hampton declared that he should hardly know them apart, and that Linda was now indeed Dorothy's Double.

THE END