_Is so very necessary between the ninth and eleventh that it could not
possibly be dispensed with._
When Fanny was sufficiently recovered, Mrs. Rowel questioned her very
particularly upon the circumstances that had occurred, and exhibited a
great deal of laudable curiosity to be fully enlightened touching the
mystery that had been enacted before her. Fanny would fain have kept
it to herself; but too much had already passed in the presence of the
doctor's wife to render such a line of conduct altogether practicable.
Nevertheless, it was not until a faithful promise of secrecy had been
made on the part of Mrs. Rowel, that Fanny was induced to communicate
to her so much of her story as was needful to render something like
an intelligible whole. In this account she omitted any mention of
the source from whence the information respecting her father had been
obtained; and also forbore making the most distant allusion to the
death of her late master, or to the part which she secretly believed the
doctor had taken in that event.
The lady listened to her narrative with great astonishment, and when
it was concluded, seized both her hands in an affectionate manner, and
exclaimed, “Then, my dear, you are my niece:--the doctor is your own
uncle, for your mother and he were brother and sister!”
This information, as may be readily supposed, astonished Fanny, though
it did not affect her so much as the discovery of her father made just
before. She thought of her own uncle being a murderer;--she regretted
ever having mentioned the subject to Colin, and resolved never to allude
to it again before any one. She dreaded the very thought that, bad as he
was, her own uncle should owe to her his degradation, and an ignominious
death on a public scaffold. The thought of all this she could not
endure; and, in order to avert the possibility of danger from any
unexpected quarter, she now begged of the doctor's wife to hide from her
husband the fact that she _had_ discovered her father in those cells,
lest it might lead to a still worse danger, the bare possibility of
which she dreaded to think upon. Mrs. Rowel not only promised to do all
this,--a promise which eventually she fulfilled,--but also gave Fanny
the fullest assurance that she would exercise her utmost endeavours
in the attempt to prevail upon her husband to set James Woodruff at
liberty. For all this Fanny returned her most heartfelt thanks, and then
took her leave.
For some time afterwards she could take no rest, no food, think of
nothing in the world except her father. She felt eager to see Colin and
inform him of what had occurred, but found it impossible to do so until
some few days after, when she took the opportunity afforded by a Sunday
afternoon to hasten over to Whinmoor.
As she passed down the fields, she felt fearful of again encountering
Miss Sowersoft, and tried to plan several little ways for seeing Colin
unknown to her. In the midst of her reveries she suddenly beheld old
George sauntering along the hedge side, with his hands on his back, and
a bit of hawthorn blossom stuck in the button-hole of his coat. To him
Fanny applied; and as the old man most readily undertook to execute her
wishes, she waited in the fields until he sent Colin out to meet her.
Together, then, they slowly traversed the fields, while Fanny detailed
her extraordinary story, and listened with additional wonder to that
which the youth in turn related respecting his adventure at Kiddal Hall,
and the great assistance which, in consequence, the squire had promised
to afford him. This mightily revived Fanny's hopes; for in the person of
Mr.
Lupton she fancied she now saw one who would aid in the liberation of
her father.
But Colin somewhat clouded these fair visions, when, after some thought,
he told her that as, in consequence of Mr. Lupton being from home so
long, it would be impossible to communicate the matter to him, he would
not wait until the time was passed, and leave her father in such
a horrible place so much longer, but would try a plan of his own
contrivance for effecting his liberation.
Having explained his scheme, and succeeded in quieting Fanny's distrust
as to its execution, Colin bade her farewell, and promised to see her
again in a few days.