Chapter 46

But Dr. Ives was mistaken. Had he seen the sparkling eyes and glowing
cheeks of Miss Moseley, the smile of satisfaction and happiness which
played on the usually thoughtful face of Mrs. Wilson, when the earl handed
them into his own carriage, as they left his house on the evening of the
discovery, the doctor would have gladly acknowledged the failure of his
prognostics. In truth, there was no possible event that, under the
circumstances, could have given both aunt and niece such heartfelt
pleasure, as the knowledge that Denbigh and the earl were the same person.

Pendennyss stood holding the door of the carriage in his hand, irresolute
how to act, when Mrs. Wilson said--

"Surely, my lord, you sup with us."

"A thousand thanks, my dear madam, for the privilege," cried the earl, as
he sprang into the coach; the door was closed, and they drove off.

"After the explanations of this morning, my lord," said Mrs. Wilson,
willing to remove all doubts between him and Emily, and perhaps anxious to
satisfy her own curiosity, "it will be fastidious to conceal our desire to
know more of your movements. How came your pocket-book in the possession
of Mrs. Fitzgerald?"

"Mrs. Fitzgerald!" cried Pendennyss, in astonishment "I lost the book in
one of the rooms of the Lodge, and supposed it had fallen into your hands,
and betrayed my disguise by Emily's rejection of me, and your own altered
eye. Was I mistaken then in both?"

Mrs. Wilson now, for the first time, explained their real grounds for
refusing his offers, which, in the morning, she had loosely mentioned as
owing to a misapprehension of his just character, and recounted the manner
of the book falling into the hands of Mrs. Fitzgerald.

The earl listened in amazement, and after musing with himself, exclaimed--

"I remember taking it from my pocket, to show Colonel Egerton some
singular plants I had gathered, and think I first missed it when returning
to the place where I had then laid it; in some of the side-pockets were
letters from Marian, addressed to me, properly; and I naturally thought
they had met your eye."

Mrs. Wilson and Emily immediately thought Egerton the real villain, who
had caused both themselves and Mrs. Fitzgerald so much uneasiness, and the
former mentioned her suspicions to the earl.

"Nothing more probable, dear madam," cried he, "and this explains to me
his startled looks when we first met, and his evident dislike to my
society, for he must have seen my person, though the carriage hid _him_
from my sight."

That Egerton was the wretch, and that through his agency the pocket-book
had been carried to the cottage, they