LITMIR.BIZ

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cannot bring myself to believe it. There must be some mistake. My daughter! Lady Mary Palliser!" Again the young man bowed his head. "What are your pretensions?"

      "Simply her regard."

      "Of course it is impossible. You are not so ignorant but that you must have known as much when you came to me."

      There was so much scorn in his words, and in the tone in which they were uttered, that Tregear in his turn was becoming angry. He had prepared himself to bow humbly before the great man, before the Duke, before the Crœsus, before the late Prime Minister, before the man who was to be regarded as certainly one of the most exalted of the earth; but he had not prepared himself to be looked at as the Duke looked at him. "The truth, my Lord Duke, is this," he said, "that your daughter loves me, and that we are engaged to each other—as far as that engagement can be made without your sanction as her father."

      "It cannot have been made at all," said the Duke.

      "I can only hope—we can both of us only hope that a little time may soften—"

      "It is out of the question. There must be an end of this altogether. You must neither see her, nor hear from her, nor in any way communicate with her. It is altogether impossible. I believe, sir, that you have no means?"

      "Very little at present, Duke."

      "How did you think you were to live? But it is altogether unnecessary to speak of such a matter as that. There are so many reasons to make this impossible, that it would be useless to discuss one as being more important than others. Has any other one of my family known of this?" This he added, wishing to ascertain whether Lord Silverbridge had disgraced himself by lending his hand to such a disposition of his sister.

      "Oh yes," said Tregear.

      "Who has known it?"

      "The Duchess, sir. We had all her sympathy and approval."

      "I do not believe a word of it," said the Duke, becoming extremely red in the face. He was forced to do now that which he had just declared that he had never done in his life—driven by the desire of his heart to acquit the wife he had lost of the terrible imprudence, worse than imprudence, of which she was now accused.

      "That is the second time, my Lord, that you have found it necessary to tell me that you have not believed direct assertions which I made you. But, luckily for me, the two assertions are capable of the earliest and most direct proof. You will believe Lady Mary, and she will confirm me in the one and the other."

      The Duke was almost beside himself with emotion and grief. He did know—though now at this moment he was most loath to own to himself that it was so—that his dear wife had been the most imprudent of women. And he recognised in her encouragement of this most pernicious courtship—if she had encouraged it—a repetition of that romantic folly by which she had so nearly brought herself to shipwreck in her own early life. If it had been so—even whether it had been so or not—he had been wrong to tell the man that he did not believe him. And the man had rebuked him with dignity. "At any rate it is impossible," he repeated.

      "I cannot allow that it is impossible."

      "That is for me to judge, sir."

      "I trust that you will excuse me when I say that I also must hold myself to be in some degree a judge in the matter. If you were in my place, you would feel—"

      "I could not possibly be in your place."

      "If your Grace were in my place you would feel that as long as you were assured by the young lady that your affection was valued by her you would not be deterred by the opposition of her father. That you should yield to me, of course I do not expect; that Lady Mary should be persistent in her present feelings, when she knows your mind, perhaps I have no right to hope; but should she be so persistent as to make you feel that her happiness depends, as mine does, on our marriage, then I shall believe that you will yield at last."

      "Never!" said the Duke. "Never! I shall never believe that my daughter's happiness can be assured by a step which I should regard as disgraceful to her."

      "Disgraceful is a violent word, my Lord."

      "It is the only word that will express my meaning."

      "And one which I must be bold enough to say you are not justified in using. Should she become my wife to-morrow, no one in England would think she had disgraced herself. The Queen would receive her on her marriage. All your friends would hold out their hands to us—presuming that we had your goodwill."

      "But you would not have it."

      "Her disgrace would not depend upon that, my Lord. Should your daughter so dispose of herself, as to disgrace herself—which I think to be impossible—your countenance could not set her right. Nor can the withdrawal of your countenance condemn her before the world if she does that with herself which any other lady might do and remain a lady."

      The Duke, when he heard this, even in the midst of his wrath, which was very violent, and in the midst of his anger, which was very acute, felt that he had to deal with a man—with one whom he could not put off from him into the gutter, and there leave as buried in the mud. And there came, too, a feeling upon him, which he had no time to analyse, but of which he was part aware, that this terrible indiscretion on the part of his daughter and of his late wife was less wonderful than it had at first appeared to be. But not on that account was he the less determined to make the young man feel that his parental opposition would be invincible.

      "It is quite impossible, sir. I do not think that I need say anything more." Then, while Tregear was meditating whether to make any reply, the Duke asked a question which had better have been left unasked. The asking of it diminished somewhat from that ducal, grand-ducal, quasi-archducal, almost godlike superiority which he had assumed, and showed the curiosity of a mere man. "Has anybody else been aware of this?" he said, still wishing to know whether he had cause for anger against Silverbridge in the matter.

      "Mrs. Finn is aware of it," answered Tregear.

      "Mrs. Finn!" exclaimed the Duke, as though he had been stung by an adder.

      This was the woman whom he had prayed to remain awhile with his daughter after his wife had been laid in her grave, in order that there might be someone near whom he could trust! And this very woman whom he had so trusted—whom, in his early associations with her, he had disliked and distrusted, but had taught himself both to like and to trust because his wife had loved her—this woman was the she-Pandarus who had managed matters between Tregear and his daughter! His wife had been too much subject to her influence. That he had always known. And now, in this last act of her life, she had allowed herself to be persuaded to give up her daughter by the baneful wiles of this most pernicious woman. Such were the workings of the Duke's mind when the young man told him that Mrs. Finn was acquainted with the whole affair. As the reader is aware, nothing could have been more unjust.

      "I mentioned her name," said Tregear, "because I thought she had been a friend of the family."

      "That will do, sir. I have been greatly pained as well as surprised by what I have heard. Of the real state of the case I can form no opinion till I see my daughter. You, of course, will hold no further intercourse with her." He paused as though for a promise, but Tregear did not feel himself called upon to say a word in one direction or in the other. "It will be my care that you shall not do so. Good-morning, sir."

      Tregear, who during the interview had been standing, then bowed, turned upon his heel, and left the room.

      The Duke seated himself, and, crossing his arms upon his chest, sat for an hour looking up at the ceiling. Why was it that, for him, such a world of misery had been prepared? What wrong had he done, of what imprudence had he been guilty, that, at every turn of life, something should occur so grievous as to make him think himself the most wretched of men? No man had ever loved his wife more dearly than he had done; and yet now, in that very excess of tenderness which her death had occasioned, he was driven to accuse her of a great sin against himself, in that she had kept from him her knowledge of this affair;—for, when he came to turn the matter over in his mind, he did believe

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