'Then,' exclaimed Miss Headworth, holding her hands tightly clasped,
'Shall I really see justice done at last to my poor child?'

'It is young Mark's most earnest wish and his father--'Lady Kirkaldy
hesitated for a word, and Miss Headworth put in:

'His father! Why would he never even acknowledge either Alice's
letters or mine? We wrote several times both to him and Lady
Adelaide, and never received any reply, except one short one,
desiring he might not be troubled on such a subject. It was cruel!
Alice said it was not in his writing. She had done very wrong, and
the family might well be offended, but a poor child like her, just
eighteen, might have been treated with some pity.'

'My sister was in declining health. He was very much engrossed. He
left the matter to--to others,' said Lady Kirkaldy. 'He is very
sorry now that he acquiesced in what was then thought right. He did
not then know that there had been a marriage.'

'I should have thought in that case a clergyman would have been bound
to show the more compassion.'

Lady Kirkaldy knew that the cruel silence had been chiefly the work
of the stem Puritan pitilessness of her mother, so she passed this
over, saying, 'We are all very anxious to atone, as far as possible,
for what is past, but we know little or nothing, only what my nephew
Mark has been able to gather.'

'Little Mark! Alice always talked of him with great affection. How
pleased she will be to hear of his remembering her.'