I do not acknowledge papa's right or yours to press me to marry any
man."

"But I suppose you acknowledge your right to be as good as your word?
Here is the money; you have only got to take it."

"What you mean is that I ought to acknowledge my obligation to be as
good as my word. I do. I told my father that I would not be a burden
to him, and I am bound to keep to that. He will have understood that
at the present moment I am breaking my promise through a mistake of
Uncle Indefer's which I could not have anticipated."

"You are breaking your promise because you will not accept money that
is your own."

"I am breaking my promise, and that is sufficient. I will go out of
the house and will cease to be a burden. If I only knew where I could
go, I would begin to-morrow."

"That is all nonsense," said Mrs Brodrick, getting up and bursting
out of the room in anger. "There is a man ready to marry you, and
there is the money. Anybody can see with half an eye what is your
duty."

Isabel, with all the eyes that she had, could not see what was her
duty. That it could not be her duty to take a present of money from
the man whom she believed to be robbing her of the estate she felt
quite sure. It could not be her duty to bring poverty on a man whom
she loved,--especially not as she had refused to confer wealth upon
him. It was, she thought, clearly her duty not to be a burden upon
her father, as she had told him that no such burden should fall upon
him. It was her duty, she thought, to earn her own bread, or else to
eat none at all. In her present frame of mind she would have gone out
of the house on the moment if any one would have accepted her even as
a kitchenmaid. But there was no one to accept her. She had questioned
her father on the matter, and he had ridiculed her idea of earning
her bread. When she had spoken of service, he had become angry with
her. It was not thus that he could be relieved. He did not want to
see his girl a maid-servant or even a governess. It was not thus that
she could relieve him. He simply wanted to drive her into his views,
so that she might accept the comfortable income which was at her
disposal, and become the wife of a gentleman whom every one esteemed.
But she, in her present frame of mind, cared little for any disgrace
she might bring on others by menial service. She was told that she
was a burden, and she desired to cease to be burdensome.

Thinking it over all that night, she resolved