has told me that if I persist in becoming your wife, I shall not be
deserted on my wedding-day. Wherever we may marry, he will be there
to read the service, and my aunt will go to the church with me. But
he entreats me to consider seriously what I am doing--to consent to a
separation from you for a time--to consult other people on my position
toward you, if I am not satisfied with his opinion. Oh, my darling, they
are as anxious to part us as if you were the worst instead of the best
of men!"

"Has anything happened since yesterday to increase their distrust of
me?" he asked.

"Yes."

"What is it?"

"You remember referring my uncle to a friend of yours and of his?"

"Yes. To Major Fitz-David."

"My uncle has written to Major Fitz-David."

"Why?"

He pronounced that one word in a tone so utterly unlike his natural tone
that his voice sounded quite strange to me.

"You won't be angry, Eustace, if I tell you?" I said. "My uncle, as I
understood him, had several motives for writing to the major. One of
them was to inquire if he knew your mother's address."

Eustace suddenly stood still.

I paused at the same moment, feeling that I could venture no further
without the risk of offending him.

To speak the truth, his conduct, when he first mentioned our engagement
to my uncle, had been (so far as appearances went) a little flighty and
strange. The vicar had naturally questioned him about his family. He had
answered that his father was dead; and he had consented, though not very
readily, to announce his contemplated marriage to his mother. Informing
us that she too lived in the country, he had gone to see her, without
more particularly mentioning her address. In two days he had returned
to the Vicarage with a very startling message. His mother intended no
disrespect to me or my relatives, but she disapproved so absolutely
of her son's marriage that she (and the members of her family, who all
agreed with her) would refuse to be present at the ceremony, if Mr.
Woodville persisted in keeping his engagement with Dr. Starkweather's
niece. Being asked to explain this extraordinary communication, Eustace
had told us that his mother and his sisters were bent on his marrying
another lady, and that they were bitterly mortified and disappointed by
his choosing a stranger to the family. This explanation was enough for
me; it implied, so far as I was concerned, a compliment to my superior
influence over Eustace, which a woma