"It is not timidity that prevents me. I have been desperate enough to do any thing. I have tried. Indeed, I don't know what more I could possibly do than what I have done." She paused. She was not going to tell every thing to a stranger.
"Miss Dalton," said Dudleigh, fervently, "I can not express my joy at the happy accident that has brought me here. For it was only by chance that I came to Dalton, though after I came I naturally thought of you, as I said, and came here."
"I fear," said Edith, "that it may seem strange to you for me to take you into my confidence, after we have only interchanged a few words. But I must do so. I have no alternative. I am desperate. I am the Dalton of Dalton Hall, and I find myself in the power of a base adventurer. He imprisons me. He sets spies to watch over me. He directs that ruffian at the gates to turn away my friends, and tell them some story about my grief and seclusion. I have not seen any visitors since I came."
"Well, there was one family--the Mowbrays, of whom I need say nothing."
"The Mowbrays?" said Dudleigh, with a strange glance.
"Do you know any thing about them?" asked Edith.
"Pardon me, Miss Dalton; I prefer to say nothing about them."
"By all means, I prefer to say nothing about them myself."
"But, Miss Dalton, I feel confounded and bewildered. I can not understand you even yet. Do you really mean to say that you, the mistress of these estates, the heiress, the lady of Dalton Hall--that _you_ are restricted in this way and by _him_?"
"It is all most painfully true," said Edith. "It almost breaks my heart to think of such a humiliation, but it is true. I have been here for months, literally a prisoner. I have absolutely no communication with my friends, or with the outside world. This man Wiggins declares that he is my guardian, and can do as he chooses. He says that a guardian has as much authority over his ward as a father over his child."
"Oh! I think I understand. He may be partly right, after all. You are young yet, you know. You are not of age."
"I am of age," said Edith, mournfully, "and that is what makes it so intolerable. If I were under age I might bear it for a time. There might then appear to be, at least, the show of right on his side. But as it is, there is nothing but might. He has imprisoned me. He has put me under surveillance. I am watched at this moment."