Nature is a great mental and bodily physician, if people would only let her perform her mysterious operations alone; injudicious interference causes all the danger, and often destroys the reason and life of the sufferer.
But it was to describe Dorothy's interview with Lord Wilton, and not to moralize on love and disappointment that we commenced this chapter.
The nobleman dismounted from his horse, and accosted his _protégée_ with his usual kindness, and inquired with great earnestness of look and tone, "If Gilbert Rushmere had been down to see her, and if she was pleased with his promotion."
The first question she promptly replied to in the negative. His lordship seemed surprised and annoyed. "With regard to his promotion," she said, "his parents could but be pleased and gratified, and the young soldier spoke of it with the deepest gratitude."
"But what do you think of it, Dorothy? Will his good fortune make you happy?"
The young girl's lips quivered. She grew very red, then turned as pale as ashes, but mastering her emotion, she answered with tolerable self-command.
Dorothy's voice dropped almost to a whisper, as she stammered out: "Oh, my lord, don't ask me, I have really not the courage to speak about it."
"But, my dear girl, I must know the reason of this distress. I thought you and Gilbert were one?"
"I thought so once." She looked down and pressed her hands tightly over her breast. "My lord, Gilbert Rushmere has forgotten me."
"Do not blame him too severely, my lord. Perhaps I have been too harsh in my condemnation. It is not his fault that I placed too high an estimate on his character, was too confident in his love. He has only acted according to his nature. He has not deceived me, I have suffered my affection for him to blind my eyes to his faults."
"My noble girl, I cannot suffer you to excuse him by taking the blame of such selfish, heartless conduct on yourself."
"Ah, my lord, we are all more or less selfish and the creatures of circumstance; while I continued to love Gilbert, his desertion seemed to me very dreadful; the anguish it gave me was almost more than I could bear, but now when it is all over, and I can think of it calmly, I see it in a very different light. While we lived in the same house, learned from the same books, and worked together in the same fields, there was a natural equality between us. But since Gilbert has acquired a higher position, associated with well educated people, and seen more of the great world, he feels a superiority over me, of which he was before entirely ignorant. He has advanced, while I remain in the same position in which he left me, a servant, in his father's house."