Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn, 1810-1865 / 2008-11-01 00:00:00
Trust to
me. I will learn all that can be learnt. You shall know all that
money, or pains, or wit can discover. It is true she may be long
dead: but she may have left a child."
"A child!" she cried, as if for the first time this idea had struck
her mind. "Hear him, Blessed Virgin! he says she may have left a
child. And you have never told me, though I have prayed so for a
sign, waking or sleeping!"
"Nay," said I, "I know nothing but what you tell me. You say you
heard of her marriage."
But she caught nothing of what I said. She was praying to the Virgin
in a kind of ecstasy, which seemed to render her unconscious of my
very presence.
From Coldholme I went to Sir Philip Tempest's. The wife of the
foreign officer had been a cousin of his father's, and from him I
thought I might gain some particulars as to the existence of the
Count de la Tour d'Auvergne, and where I could find him; for I knew
questions de vive voix aid the flagging recollection, and I was
determined to lose no chance for want of trouble. But Sir Philip had
gone abroad, and it would be some time before I could receive an
answer. So I followed my uncle's advice, to whom I had mentioned how
wearied I felt, both in body and mind, by my will-o'-the-wisp search.
He immediately told me to go to Harrogate, there to await Sir
Philip's reply.
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