第194章

'I have the honour to be, 'Your Grace's faithful Servant, 'FRANCIS TREGEAR.'

This coming alone would perhaps have had no effect. The Duke had desired the young man not to address him again; and the young man had disobeyed him. No mere courtesy would now have constrained him to send any reply further to this letter. But coming as it did while his heart was still throbbing with the effects of Mrs Finn's words, it was allowed to have a certain force. The argument was a true argument. His girl was devoted to the man who sought her hand. Mrs Finn had told him that sooner or later he must yield,--unless he was prepared to see his child wither and fade at his side. He had once thought that he would be prepared even for that.

He had endeavoured to strengthen his own will by arguing with himself that when he saw a duty plainly before him, he should cleave to that let the results be what they might. But that picture of her face withered and wan after twenty years of sorrowing had had its effect upon his heart. He even made excuses within his own breast in the young man's favour. He was in Parliament now, and what may not be done for a young man in Parliament? Altogether the young man appeared to him in a different light from that through which he had viewed the presumptuous, arrogant young suitor who had come to him, now nearly a year since, in Carlton Terrace.

He went to breakfast with Tregear's letter in his pocket, and was then gracious to Mrs Finn, and tender to his daughter. 'When do you go, papa?' Mary asked.

'I shall take the 11.45 train. I have ordered the carriage at a quarter before eleven.'

'May I go to the train, papa?'

'Certainly; I shall be delighted.'

'Papa!' Mary said as soon as she found herself seated beside her father in the carriage.

'My dear.'

'Oh, papa!' and she threw herself on to his breast. He put his arm round her and kissed her,--as he would have had so much delight in doing, as he would have done so often before, had there not been this ground of discord. She was very sweet to him. It had never seemed to him that she had disgraced herself by loving Tregear--but that a great misfortune had fallen upon her. Silverbridge when he had gone into a racing partnership with Tifto, and Gerald when he had played for money which he did not possess, had--degraded themselves in his estimation. He would not have used such a word; but it was his feeling. They were less noble, less pure than they might have been, had the kept themselves free from such stain. But this girl,--whether she should live and fade by his side, or whether she should give her hand to some fitting noble suitor,--or even though she might at last become the wife of this man who loved her, would always have been pure. It was sweet to him to have something to caress. Now in the solitude of his life, as years were coming on him, he felt how necessary it was that he should have someone who would love him. Since his wife had left him he had been debarred from these caresses, by the necessity of showing his antagonism to her dearest wishes. It had been his duty to be stern. In all his words to his daughter he had been governed by a conviction that he never ought to allow the duty of separating her from her lover to be absent from his mind. He was not prepared to acknowledge that that duty had ceased;--but yet there had crept over him a feeling that as he was half conquered, why should he not seek some recompense in his daughter's love.

'Papa,' she said, 'you do not hate me?'

'Hate you, my darling!'

'Because I am disobedient. Oh, papa, I cannot help it. He should not have come. He should not have been let to come.' He had not a word to say to her. He could not as yet bring himself to tell her,--that it should be as she desired. Much less could he now argue with her as to the impossibility of such a marriage as he had done on former occasions when the matter had been discussed.

He could only press his arm tightly round her waist, and be silent. 'It cannot be altered now, papa. Look at me. Tell me that you love me.'

'Have you doubted my love?'

'No, papa,--but I would do anything to make you happy; anything that I could do. Papa, you do not want me to marry Lord Popplecourt?'

'I would not have you marry any man without loving him.'

'I never can love anybody else. That is what I wanted you to know, papa.'

To this he made no reply, nor was there anything else said upon the subject before the carriage drove up to the railway station.

'Do not get out, dear,' he said, seeing that her eyes had been filled with tears. 'It is not worth while. God bless you my child!

You will be up in London I hope in a fortnight, and we must try to make the house a little less dull for you.'

And so he encountered the third attack.

Lady Mary, as she was driven home, recovered her spirits wonderfully. Not a word had fallen from her father which she could use hereafter as a refuge from her embarrassments. He had made her no promise. He had assented to nothing. But there had been something in his manner, in his gait, in his eye, in the pressure of his arm, which made her feel that her troubles would soon be at an end.

'I do love you so much,' she said to Mrs Finn late on that afternoon.

'I am glad of that, dear.'

'I shall always love you,--because you have been on my side all through.'

'No, Mary;--that is not so.'

'I know it is so. Of course you have to be wise because you are older. And papa would not have you here with me if you were not wise. But I know you are on my side,--and papa knows it too. And someone else shall know it some day.'