mean?" he asked. "Do you
think we ought to yield?"

"Not at once, certainly."

"But at last?"

"What can you do, Duke? If she be as firm as you, can you bear to see
her pine away in her misery?"

"Girls do not do like that," he said.

"Girls, like men, are very different. They generally will yield to
external influences. English girls, though they become the most
loving wives in the world, do not generally become so riven by an
attachment as to become deep sufferers when it is disallowed. But
here, I fear, we have to deal with one who will suffer after this
fashion."

"Why should she not be like others?"

"It may be so. We will try. But you see what she says in her letter
to him. She writes as though your authority were to be nothing in
that matter of giving up. In all that she says to me there is the
same spirit. If she is firm, Duke, you must yield."

"Never! She shall never marry him with my sanction."

There was nothing more to be said, and Lady Cantrip went her way. But
the Duke, though he could say nothing more, continued to think of it
hour after hour. He went down to the House of Lords to listen to a
debate in which it was intended to cover the ministers with heavy
disgrace. But the Duke could not listen even to his own friends.
He could listen to nothing as he thought of the condition of his
children.

He had been asked whether he could bear to see his girl suffer, as
though he were indifferent to the sufferings of his child. Did he
not know of himself that there was no father who would do more for
the welfare of his daughter? Was he not sure of the tenderness of
his own heart? In all that he was doing was he governed by anything
but a sense of duty? Was it personal pride or love of personal
aggrandisement? He thought that he could assure himself that he was
open to no such charge. Would he not die for her,--or for them,--if
he could so serve them? Surely this woman had accused him most
wrongfully when she had intimated that he could see his girl suffer
without caring for it. In his indignation he determined--for
awhile--that he would remove her from the custody of Lady Cantrip.
But then, where should he place her? He was aware that his own
house would be like a grave to a girl just fit to come out into the
world. In this coming autumn she must go somewhere,--with someone.
He himself, in his present frame of mind, would be but a sorry
travelling companion.

Lady Cantrip had said that the best h