"No, Grey, if I had not met you, I could not have married Neil. I once thought I loved him, it is true, but I know now I did not. We were so unlike we could never have been happy. But I like him very much and am sorry for him, if he really cared for me. I wonder what he will say when he hears I am married and am here in Wales. He did not even know I was engaged. I think you ought to write and tell him, and perhaps invite him here for the holidays. Do you think he would care to come?"
"No, Bessie. Neither would I care to have him," Grey replied. "I would rather spend the first Christmas alone with you in the place where I first saw you; but I am willing to write to Neil, and when we go to London I will find him of course, and you shall see him."
"Thank you, Grey," Bessie said, just as Dorothy came in with a letter for her mistress, who took it in her hand and bending to the firelight recognized Neil's hand-writing, while her cheeks flushed as she saw her new name, Mrs. Grey Jerrold, and thought that Neil was the first to address her thus.
Breaking the seal, she read as follows: "LONDON, December ----, 18--.
"My Dear Cousin: You may think it strange that I have not written before this and congratulated you upon your marriage. But I did not know of it until a week ago, when I came home from the Continent, summoned by the news that my mother was very ill. Then I found a telegram from my Aunt Betsey, which said, 'Bessie was married yesterday to Grey Jerrold and sails to-day for Liverpool.' I was not greatly surprised, and I am glad that it is Grey, I know he is worthy of you and I hope you will both be happy, even if I am wretched and forlorn, for I am more so than I ever was in my life before. Mother is dead and we have just returned from burying her at the old home in Middlesex. She died of typhoid-pneumonia the day after my return. I did not send for you to attend her funeral, for fear it would seem like an insult, she had taken such a stand against you during her life. But she changed very much in that respect, and a few hours before she died she talked of you, and said she withdrew all her opposition, and that, if I loved you still and you loved me she hoped we would marry and be happy. I did not tell her of the telegram, and so she did not know that you were already married. But, strangest of all, she advised me to go to America, and if I could find anything to do, which would not compromise me as a gentleman, to do it. Think of that, Bessie. My mother advising me to work, after all her training to the contrary. But she knew there was no other way. It is work or starve with me now. A few weeks before mother's death she lost nearly everything which she had in her own right, and which would have naturally come to me, so that most of her income died with her. Neither Trevellian House, nor the one in the country, is ours any longer, and father must go into lodgings when the new heir takes possession. This, at his age, is very hard, and I am sorry for him. If we only had the house in Middlesex it would not be so bad, for he likes the country and would be happy there. What he will do here alone in London I am sure I don't know, for I am going out to India on a salary of three hundred pounds a year; small enough for a chap of my habits, but better than nothing.