Mrs. Charmond looked ill at ease. She might have begun to guess his

meaning; but apart from that, she had such dread of contact with

anything painful, harsh, or even earnest, that his preliminaries alone

were enough to distress her. "Yes, what is it?" she said.

"I am an old man," said Melbury, "whom, somewhat late in life, God

thought fit to bless with one child, and she a daughter. Her mother

was a very dear wife to me, but she was taken away from us when the

child was young, and the child became precious as the apple of my eye

to me, for she was all I had left to love. For her sake entirely I

married as second wife a homespun woman who had been kind as a mother

Advertisement..

to her. In due time the question of her education came on, and I said,

'I will educate the maid well, if I live upon bread to do it.' Of her

possible marriage I could not bear to think, for it seemed like a death

that she should cleave to another man, and grow to think his house her

home rather than mine. But I saw it was the law of nature that this

should be, and that it was for the maid's happiness that she should

have a home when I was gone; and I made up my mind without a murmur to

help it on for her sake. In my youth I had wronged my dead friend, and

to make amends I determined to give her, my most precious possession,

to my friend's son, seeing that they liked each other well. Things came

about which made me doubt if it would be for my daughter's happiness to

do this, inasmuch as the young man was poor, and she was delicately

reared. Another man came and paid court to her--one her equal in

breeding and accomplishments; in every way it seemed to me that he only

could give her the home which her training had made a necessity almost.

I urged her on, and she married him. But, ma'am, a fatal mistake was

at the root of my reckoning. I found that this well-born gentleman I

had calculated on so surely was not stanch of heart, and that therein

lay a danger of great sorrow for my daughter. Madam, he saw you, and

you know the rest....I have come to make no demands--to utter no

threats; I have come simply as a father in great grief about this only

child, and I beseech you to deal kindly with my daughter, and to do

nothing which can turn her husband's heart away from her forever.

Forbid him your presence, ma'am, and speak to him on his duty as one

with your power over him well can do, and I am hopeful that the rent

between them may be patched up. For it is not as if you would lose by

so doing; your course is far higher than the courses of a simple

professional man, and the gratitude you would win from me and mine by

your kindness is more than I can say."




Most Popular