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“Elsie guilty of taking the ring? Impossible! Why, I have known her from a child—I have trusted her in everything—she loves me as a daughter——”
“Too much as a daughter,” was the answer, with a sneer. ‘Are your eyes still blind, my dear Lndy Shafton? Elsie Leigh aspires to be your successor.”
“You do not mean—it cannot be! Why, it has always been understood that you were to marry Perey yourself—the estates juin, you know——" stammered the bewildered mother.
“That I was to be the future Countess of Shafton was well understood,” answered the younger lady, coolly playing with the tassel of her morning-dress, “But, only yesterday, I surprised my young lord and your poor cousin and companion,” the coutemptuous tone of these last words is indescribable, “in the garden, bill- ing and cooing like a milk-maid and her ewain. Iwas behind one of the big box-trees, and came on them by accident, nor could I escape without betraying myself, so I was forced to hear, and even sev a little, Well, to be short, he was pressing her to accept o ring, and promising that uo other one should ever be his wife. He told her that be had to go away to-day, on bis travels, but that when he was of age he would -come back, and marry her in defiauce of everybody: I suppose be meuat you aud me, sad the will of his father, the late earl,”
Lady Shafton sprung to hor feet, white with rage. She was a passionate woman, intensely proud of ber son's linenge.
“The upstart—tho viper,” she cried. «I will order her, this very minute, to leave the house. How does she dare, the daughter of a common clergyman, even though a cousin of our house—”
She broke down, choked by rage. The Lady Alice laid her hand on the elder woman’s arm.
“A moment, my dear Lady Shafton. Let us avoid scandal, at least such as may affect your noble house. This girl, this Elsie, must be dis- missed, but not on such a plea. Turn her off, but do it for stealing the topaz.”
“The topaz?”
“Yes! Don’t you see? She was the only person in the room beside yourself. If she is base enough to entrap your son, she is base enough for the other. the ring; that the title and wealth always go with its possessor, and that, if the ring is lost, so will they be; and she probably thinks, the silly fool, that by taking the ring she will secure Percy and become Countess of Shafton. To me it is perfectly clear. But say not a word of the scene yesterday. Let no one suspect that Percy has fallen a victim to her wiles. and charge her with the theft; and then tura her off before all the servants. Percy is amy and cannot interfere, and in a fow months he will forget her.”
It is astonishing what power a cold, crafty person, like Lady Alice, has over passionate natures like Lady Shafton. The latter was mere tool in the hands of the younger woman.
But Elsie, when summoned, made a brave fight for her good name. She came in, fresh and buoyant, in all the splendor of her sweet beauty, and though her cheek paled, at first, at the accusation, she soon rallied.
“Steal the topaz!” she exclaimed. “Lady Shafton, you cannot think it. You know you took the ring out of its box, and laid it on the toilet-table yourself. You held it up for me to see, and I came and looked on it; but I did not touch it: I never have ahs! it in my life.”
But all her protestations were useless. In vain she pointed out that the toilet-table stood by the window, and that the casement was open, because the day had been warm.
“Some one may have entered by that way,” she said. But Lady Shafton answered that the window was thirty feet from the ground, and that no tree stood near, by which a thief might have climbed up. In short, even those who were Elsie’s friends, and her sweet ways had made many in that household, were forced to admit that the case against her looked black enough. As for Lady Shafton, she had no doubts. So a carriage was ordered out, and Elsie was driven to the nearest station, penniless and disgraced.
Percy came up from London, the next day, on a last visit to the castle. He found a blotted, hurried note from Elsie, returning the few little gifts he had made to her, and saying that she had gone away and would never see him again. A stormy interview followed between him and his mother. Lady Shafton said, truly, that she did not know where Elsie had gone. “The girl bought her ticket for London,” she told her son, “and said to the groom she would go from that place to her real destination. She knows she is guilty, and means to hide her shame.”
“Mother,” said Percy, “I will not, even from you, bear such words about Elsie. God will yet make her innocence clear. But never, so long as you and I live, will I put foot on this threshold again, till you have acknowledged to Elsie that you wronged her.” And with these words he rushed away, leaving Lady Shafton in a swoon.
He rushed away, and hurried to London, determined to discover Elsie’s retreat, But his
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