Early on the following morning Miss Plympton called on Edith, and was shocked to see the changes that had been made in her by that one night. She did not regard so much the pallor of her face, the languor of her manner, and her unelastic step, but rather the new expression that appeared upon her countenance, the thoughtfulness of her brow, the deep and earnest abstraction of her gaze. In that one night she seemed to have stepped from girlhood to maturity. It was as though she had lived through the intervening experience. Years had been crowded into hours. She was no longer a school-girl—she was a woman.

Miss Plympton soon retired, with the promise to come again when Edith should feel stronger. Breakfast was sent up, and taken away untasted, and at noon Miss Plympton once more made her appearance.

“I have been thinking about many things,” said Edith, after some preliminary remarks, “and have been trying to recall what I can of my own remembrance of papa. I was only eight years old, but I have a pretty distinct recollection of him, and it has been strengthened by his portrait, which I always have had. Of my mother I have a most vivid remembrance, and I have never forgotten one single circumstance connected with her last illness. I remember your arrival, and my departure from home after all was over. But there is one thing which I should like very much to ask you about. Did none of my mother's relatives come to see her during this time?”

“Your mother's relatives acted very badly indeed, dear. From the first they were carried away by the common belief in your dear father's guilt. Some of them came flying to your mother. She was very ill at the time, and these relatives brought her the first news which she received. It was a severe blow. They were hard-hearted or thoughtless enough to denounce your father to her, and she in her weak state tried to defend him. All this produced so deplorable an effect that she sank rapidly. Her relatives left her in this condition. She tried to be carried to your dear father in his prison, but could not bear the journey. They took her as far as the gates, but she fainted there, and had to be taken back to the house. So then she gave up. She knew that she was going to die, and wrote to me imploring me to come to her. She wished to intrust you to me. I took you from her arms—”

Miss Plympton paused, and Edith was silent for some time.

“So,” said she, in a scarce audible voice, “darling mamma died of a broken heart?”

Miss Plympton, said nothing. A long silence followed.

“Had my father no friends,” asked Edith, “or no relatives?”

“He had no relatives,” said Miss Plympton, “but an only sister. She married a Captain Dudleigh, now Sir Lionel Dudleigh. But it was a very unhappy marriage, for they separated. I never knew the cause; and Captain Dudleigh took it so much to heart that he went abroad. He could not have heard of your father's misfortunes till all was over and it was too late. But in any case I do not see what he could have done, unless he had contrived to shake your father's resolve. As to his wife, I have never heard of her movements, and I think she must have died long ago. Neither she nor her husband is mentioned at the trial. If they had been in England, it seems to me that they would have come forward as witnesses in some way; so I think they were both out of the country. Sir Lionel is alive yet, I think, but he has always lived out of the world. I believe his family troubles destroyed his happiness, and made him somewhat misanthropical. I have sometimes thought in former years that he might make inquiries about you, but he has never done so to my knowledge, though perhaps he has tried without being able to hear where you were. After all, he would scarcely know where to look. On the whole, I consider Sir Lionel the only friend you have, Edith darling, besides myself, and if any trouble should ever arise, he would be the one to whom I should apply for assistance, or at least advice.”

Edith listened to this, and made no comment, but after another thoughtful pause she said,

“About this Wiggins—have you ever heard any thing of him since the—the trial?”

Miss Plympton shook her head.

“No,” said she, “except from those formal business notes. You have seen them all, and know what they are.”

“Have you ever formed any opinion of him more favorable than what you wrote in those notes?”

“I do not think that I wrote any thing more than suspicions or surmises,” said Miss Plympton; “and as far as suspicions are concerned, I certainly have not changed my mind. The position which he occupied during the trial, and ever since, excites my suspicions against him. All others suffered; he alone was benefited. And now, too, when all is over, he seems still in his old position—perhaps a better one than ever—the agent of the estates, and assuming to some extent a guardianship over you. At least he gives directions about you, for he says you are to go back to Dalton Hall. But in that he shall find himself mistaken, for I will never allow you to put yourself in his power.”

“Have you ever seen him?” asked Edith.

“No.”

She bent down her head, and leaned her forehead on her hand.

“Well,” said she, in a low voice, half to herself, “it don't matter; I shall see him soon myself.”

“See him yourself!” said Miss Plympton, anxiously. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, I shall see him soon—when I get to Dalton Hall.”

“Dalton Hall?”

“Yes,” said Edith, simply, raising her head and looking calmly at Miss Plympton.

“But you are not going to Dalton Hall.”

“There is no other place for me,” said Edith, sadly. “I am going—I am going as soon as possible.”

“Oh no—oh no, darling; you are going to do nothing of the kind,” said Miss Plympton. “I can not let you go. We all love you too dearly. This is your home, and I now stand in the place of those whom you have lost. You are never to leave me, Edith dearest.”

Edith sighed heavily, and shook her head.

“No,” she said, speaking in a low, melancholy voice—“no, I can not stay. I can not meet my friends here again. I am not what I was yesterday. I am changed. It seems as though some heavy weight has come upon me. I must go away, and I have only one place to go to, and that is my father's home.”

“My darling,” said Miss Plympton, drawing her chair close to Edith, and twining her arms about her, “you must not talk so; you can not imagine how you distress me. I can not let you go. Do not think of these things. We all love you. Do not imagine that your secret will be discovered. No one shall ever know it. In a few days you yourself will feel different. The consciousness of your father's innocence will make you feel more patient, and the love of all your friends will make your life as happy as ever.”

“No,” said Edith, “I can not—I can not. You can not imagine how I dread to see the face of any one of them. I shall imagine that they know all; and I can not tell them. They will tease me to tell them my troubles, and it will only worry me. No, for me to stay here is impossible. I would go any where first.”

She spoke so firmly and decisively that Miss Plympton forbore to press her further just then.

“At any rate, my darling,” said she, “you need not think of Dalton Hall. I can find you other places which will be far more suitable to you in every way. If it distresses you to stay here, I can find a happy home for you, where you can stay till you feel able to return to us again.”

“There is no place,” said Edith, “where I can stay. I do not want to go among strangers, or to strange places. I have a home, and that is the only place that I can go to now. That home is familiar to me. I remember it well. It is where I was born. Dear mamma's room is there, where I used to sit with her and hear her voice. My dear papa and mamma were happy there; and she died there. It has its own associations; and now since this great sorrow has come, I long to go there. It seems the fittest place for me.”

“But, my child,” said Miss Plympton, anxiously, “there is one thing that you do not consider. Far be it from me to stand in the way of any of your wishes, especially at a time like this, but is seems to me that a return to Dalton Hall just now is hardly safe.”

“Safe!”

Edith spoke in a tone of surprise, and looked inquiringly at Miss Plympton.

“I don't like this John Wiggins,” said Miss Plympton, uneasily; “I am afraid of him.”

“But what possible cause can there be of fear?” asked Edith.

“Oh, I don't know,” said Miss Plympton, with a sigh; “no one can tell. If my suspicions are at all correct, he is a man who might be very dangerous. He has control of all the estates, and—”

“But for that very reason I would go home,” said Edith, “if there were no stronger inducement, to do what I can to put an end to his management.”

“How could you do any thing with him?” asked Miss Plympton; “you so young and inexperienced.”

“I don't know,” said Edith, simply; “but the estates are mine, and not his; and Dalton Hall is mine; and if I am the owner, surely I ought to have some power. There are other agents in the world, and other lawyers. They can help me, if I wish help. We are not living in the Middle Ages when some one could seize one's property by the strong hand and keep it. There is law in the country, and Wiggins is subject to it.”

“Oh, my child,” said Miss Plympton, anxiously, “I am terrified at the very thought of your being in that man's power. You can not tell what things are possible; and though there is law, as you say, yet it does not always happen that one can get justice.”

“That I know, or ought to know,” said Edith, in a mournful voice; “I have learned that this past night only too well.”

“It seems to me,” said Miss Plympton, with the same anxiety in her voice, “that to return to Dalton Hall will be to put yourself in some way into his power. If he is really the unscrupulous, crafty, and scheming man that I have suspected him to be, he will not find it difficult to weave some plot around you which may endanger your whole life. There is no safety in being bear that man. Be mistress of Dalton Hall, but do not go there till you have driven him away. It seems by his last letters as though he is living there now, and if you go there you will find yourself in some sense under his control.”

“Well,” said Edith, “I do not doubt his willingness to injure me if he can, or to weave a plot which shall ruin me; but, after all, such a thing takes time. He can not ruin me in one day, or in one week, and so I think I can return to Dalton Hall in safety, and be secure for a few days at least.”

Miss Plympton made some further objections, but the vague fears to which she gave expression met with no response from Edith, who looked upon her journey home in a very sober and commonplace light, and refused to let her imagination terrify her. Her argument that Wiggins would require some time to injure her was not easy to answer, and gradually Miss Plympton found herself forced to yield to Edith's determination. In fact, there was much in that resolve which was highly natural. Edith, in the first place, could not bear to resume her intimacy with her school-mates, for reasons which she had stated already; and, in addition to this, she had a strong and irresistible longing to go to the only place that was now her home. There she hoped to find peace, and gain consolation in the midst of the scenes of her childhood and the memories of her parents. These were her chief motives for action now; but in addition to these she had others. The chief was a strong desire to dismiss Wiggins from his post of agent.

The detestation which she had already conceived for this man has been noticed in a previous chapter. It had grown during past years out of a habit of her mind to associate with him the apparent alienation of her father. But now, since her father's past life was explained, this John Wiggins appeared in a new light. The dark suggestions of Miss Plympton, her suspicions as to his character and motives, had sunk deep into the soul of Edith, and taken root there. She had not yet been able to bring herself to think that this John Wiggins was himself the treacherous friend, but she was on the high-road to that belief, and already had advanced far enough to feel convinced that Wiggins could have at least saved her father if he had chosen. One thing, however, was evident to all the world, and that was what Miss Plympton laid so much stress on, the fact that he had profited by her father's ruin, and had won gold and influence and position out of her father's tears and agonies and death. And so, while she longed to go home for her own consolation, there also arose within her another motive to draw her there—the desire to see this Wiggins, to confront him, to talk to him face to face, to drive him out from the Dalton estates, and if she could not vindicate her father's memory, at least put an end to the triumph of one of his false friends.

The result of this interview was, then, that Edith should return to Dalton Hall; and as she was unwilling to wait, she decided to leave in two days. Miss Plympton was to go with her.

“And now,” said Miss Plympton, “we must write at once and give notice of your coming.”

“Write?” said Edith, coldly, “to whom?”

“Why, to—to Wiggins, I suppose,” said Miss Plympton, with some hesitation.

“I refuse to recognize Wiggins,” said Edith. “I will not communicate with him in any way. My first act shall be to dismiss him.”

“But you must send some notice to some one; you must have some preparations made.”

“Oh, I shall not need any elaborate preparations; a room will be sufficient. I should not wish to encounter the greetings of this man, or see him complacently take credit to himself for his attentions to me—and his preparations. No; I shall go and take things as I find them, and I should prefer to go without notice.”

At this Miss Plympton seemed a little more uneasy than before, and made further efforts to change Edith's decision, but in vain. She was, in fact, more perplexed at Edith herself than at any other thing; for this one who but a day before had been a gentle, tractable, docile, gay, light-hearted girl had suddenly started up into a stern, self-willed woman, with a dauntless spirit and inflexible resolve.

“There is only one more thing that I have to mention,” said Edith, as Miss Plympton rose to go. “It is a favor that I have to ask of you. It is this;” and she laid her hand on the papers of the report, which were lying rolled up in a parcel on the table. “Have you any further use for this? Will you let me keep it?”

“The need that I had for it,” said Miss Plympton, “was over when I gave it to you. I prepared it for you, and preserved it for you, and now that you have it, its work is accomplished. It is yours, dearest, for you to do as you choose with it.”

To this Edith murmured some words of thanks, and taking up the parcel, proceeded to tie it up more carefully.