"I must wait till I know the
truth. It has always been kept from me. And now I WILL know it."
She had not slept that night. All the way up to London, she kept
turning her doubt over. The more she thought of it, the deeper it
galled her. Her wrath waxed bitter against Herminia for this evil
turn she had wrought. The smouldering anger of years blazed forth
at last. Had she blighted her daughter's life, and spoiled so fair
a future by obstinate adherence to those preposterous ideas of
hers?
Never in her life had Dolly loved her mother. At best, she had
felt towards her that contemptuous toleration which inferior minds
often extend to higher ones. And now--why, she hated her.
In London, as it happened, that very morning, Herminia, walking
across Regent's Park, had fallen in with Harvey Kynaston, and their
talk had turned upon this self-same problem.
"What will you do when she asks you about it, as she must, sooner
or later?" the man inquired.
And Herminia, smiling that serene sweet smile of hers, made answer
at once without a second's hesitation, "I shall confess the whole
truth to her.
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