cares, and doubts, and fears
that had oppressed it so long, and showed him once more the better and
brighter future of his early dreams. His eyes filled with tears, and he
pressed the rector's letter, in his wild, passionate way, to his lips,
as he looked at Allan through the vista of the trees. "But for this
morsel of paper," he thought, "my life might have been one long sorrow
to me, and my father's crime might have parted us forever!"

Such was the result of the stratagem which had shown the housemaid's
face to Mr. Brock as the face of Miss Gwilt. And so--by shaking
Midwinter's trust in his own superstition, in the one case in which
that superstition pointed to the truth--did Mother Oldershaw's cunning
triumph over difficulties and dangers which had never been contemplated
by Mother Oldershaw herself.

XI. MISS GWILT AMONG THE QUICKSANDS.

1. _From the Rev. Decimus Brock to Ozias Midwinter_.

"Thursday.

"MY DEAR MIDWINTER--No words can tell what a relief it was to me to get
your letter this morning, and what a happiness I honestly feel in having
been thus far proved to be in the wrong. The precautions you have taken
in case the woman should still confirm my apprehensions by venturing
herself at Thorpe Ambrose seem to me to be all that can be desired. You
are no doubt sure to hear of her from one or other of the people in the
lawyer's office, whom you have asked to inform you of the appearance of
a stranger in the town.

"I am the more pleased at finding how entirely I can trust you in this
matter; for I am likely to be obliged to leave Allan's interests longer
than I supposed solely in your hands. My visit to Thorpe Ambrose must,
I regret to say, be deferred for two months. The only one of my
brother-clergymen in London who is able to take my duty for me cannot
make it convenient to remove with his family to Somersetshire before
that time. I have no alternative but to finish my business here, and be
back at my rectory on Saturday next. If anything happens, you will,
of course, instantly communicate with me; and, in that case, be the
inconvenience what it may, I must leave home for Thorpe Ambrose. If,
on the other hand, all goes more smoothly than my own obstinate
apprehensions will allow me to suppose, then Allan (to whom I have
written) must not expect to see me till this day two months.

"No result has, up to this time, rewarded our exertions to recover the
trace lost at the railway. I will keep m