"
"You said, I think, that she denied belonging to this place?"
"Yes, she told me she came from Hampshire."
"And you entirely failed to find out her name?"
"Entirely."
"Very strange. I think you were quite justified, Mr. Hartright,
in giving the poor creature her liberty, for she seems to have
done nothing in your presence to show herself unfit to enjoy it.
But I wish you had been a little more resolute about finding out
her name. We must really clear up this mystery, in some way. You
had better not speak of it yet to Mr. Fairlie, or to my sister.
They are both of them, I am certain, quite as ignorant of who the
woman is, and of what her past history in connection with us can
be, as I am myself. But they are also, in widely different ways,
rather nervous and sensitive; and you would only fidget one and
alarm the other to no purpose. As for myself, I am all aflame
with curiosity, and I devote my whole energies to the business of
discovery from this moment. When my mother came here, after her
second marriage, she certainly established the village school just
as it exists at the present time. But the old teachers are all
dead, or gone elsewhere; and no enlightenment is to be hoped for
from that quarter.
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