After this, the
Countess went away to London for a while, taking Dorothy with her;
and the baronet and his wife returned to their lonely place at
Deansleigh Park without her.
To renounce Dorothy in the bustle of Bath was a different thing from
living without her in this quiet home. One evening Sir Ashley
missed his wife from the supper-table; her manner had been so
pensive and woeful of late that he immediately became alarmed. He
said nothing, but looked about outside the house narrowly, and
discerned her form in the park, where recently she had been
accustomed to walk alone. In its lower levels there was a pool fed
by a trickling brook, and he reached this spot in time to hear a
splash. Running forward, he dimly perceived her light gown floating
in the water. To pull her out was the work of a few instants, and
bearing her indoors to her room, he undressed her, nobody in the
house knowing of the incident but himself. She had not been
immersed long enough to lose her senses, and soon recovered. She
owned that she had done it because the Contessa had taken away her
child, as she persisted in calling Dorothy. Her husband spoke
sternly to her, and impressed upon her the weakness of giving way
thus, when all that had happened was for the best. She took his
reproof meekly, and admitted her fault.
After that she became more resigned, but he often caught her in
tears over some doll, shoe, or ribbon of Dorothy's, and decided to
take her to the North of England for change of air and scene.
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