"And about--?"

"Yes;--about Mr. Tregear also. When I tell you that there has been a correspondence I must explain that I have written one long letter to the Duke, and that in answer I have received a very short one. That has been the whole correspondence. Here is your father's letter to me." Then she brought out of her pocket a note, which Lady Mary read,--covered with blushes as she did so. The note was as follows:

The Duke of Omnium understands from Mrs. Finn's letter that Mrs. Finn, while she was the Duke's guest at Matching, was aware of a certain circ.u.mstance affecting the Duke's honour and happiness,--which circ.u.mstance she certainly did not communicate to the Duke. The Duke thinks that the trust which had been placed in Mrs. Finn should have made such a communication imperative. The Duke feels that no further correspondence between himself and Mrs.

Finn on the matter could lead to any good result.

"Do you understand it?" asked Mrs. Finn.

"I think so."

"It simply means this,--that when at Matching he had thought me worthy of having for a time the charge of you and of your welfare, that he had trusted me, who was the friend of your dear mother, to take for a time in regard to you the place which had been so unhappily left vacant by her death; and it means also that I deceived him and betrayed that trust by being privy to an engagement on your part, of which he disapproves, and of which he was not then aware."

"I suppose he does mean that."

"Yes, Lady Mary; that is what he means. And he means further to let me know that as I did so foully betray the trust which he had placed in me,--that as I had consented to play the part of a.s.sistant to you in that secret engagement,--therefore he casts me off as altogether unworthy of his esteem and acquaintance. It is as though he had told me in so many words that among women he had known none more vile or more false than I."

"Not that, Mrs. Finn."

"Yes, that;--all of that. He tells me that, and then says that there shall be no more words spoken or written about it. I can hardly submit to so stern a judgment. You know the truth, Lady Mary."

"Do not call me Lady Mary. Do not quarrel with me."

"If your father has quarrelled with me, it would not be fit that you and I should be friends. Your duty to him would forbid it. I should not have come to you now did I not feel that I am bound to justify myself. The thing of which I am accused is so repugnant to me, that I am obliged to do something and to say something, even though the subject itself be one on which I would so willingly be silent."

"What can I do, Mrs. Finn?"

"It was Mr. Tregear who first told me that your father was angry with me. He knew what I had done and why, and he was bound to tell me in order that I might have an opportunity of setting myself right with the Duke. Then I wrote and explained everything,--how you had told me of the engagement, and how I had then urged Mr. Tregear that he should not keep such a matter secret from your father. In answer to my letter I have received--that."

"Shall I write and tell papa?"

"He should be made to understand that from the moment in which I heard of the engagement I was urgent with you and with Mr. Tregear that he should be informed of it. You will remember what pa.s.sed."

"I remember it all."

"I did not conceive it to be my duty to tell the Duke myself, but I did conceive it to be my duty to see he should be told. Now he writes as though I had known the secret from the first, and as though I had been concealing it from him at the very moment in which he was asking me to remain at Matching on your behalf. That I consider to be hard,--and unjust. I cannot deny what he says. I did know of it while I was at Matching, for it was at Matching that you told me. But he implies that I knew it before. When you told me your story I did feel that it was my duty to see that the matter was not kept longer from him;--and I did my duty. Now your father takes upon himself to rebuke me,--and takes upon himself at the same time to forbid me to write to him again!"

"I will tell him all, Mrs. Finn."

"Let him understand this. I do not wish to write to him again. After what has pa.s.sed I cannot say I wish to see him again. But I think he should acknowledge to me that he has been mistaken. He need not then fear that I shall trouble him with any reply. But I shall know that he has acquitted me of a fault of which I cannot bear to think I should be accused." Then she took a somewhat formal though still an affectionate farewell of the girl.

"I want to see papa as soon as possible," said Lady Mary when she was again with Lady Cantrip. The reason for her wish was soon given, and then the whole story told. "You do not think that she should have gone to papa at once?" Lady Mary asked. It was a point of moral law on which the elder woman, who had had girls of her own, found it hard to give an immediate answer. It certainly is expedient that parents should know at once of any engagement by which their daughters may seek to contract themselves. It is expedient that they should be able to prevent any secret contracts. Lady Cantrip felt strongly that Mrs. Finn having accepted the confidential charge of the daughter could not, without gross betrayal of trust, allow herself to be the depositary of such a secret. "But she did not allow herself," said Lady Mary, pleading for her friend.

"But she left the house without telling him, my dear."

"But it was because of what she did that he was told."

"That is true; but I doubt whether she should have left him an hour in ignorance."

"But it was I who told her. She would have betrayed me."

"She was not a fit recipient for your confidence, Mary. But I do not wish to accuse her. She seems to be a high-minded woman, and I think that your papa has been hard upon her."

"And mamma knew it always," said Mary. To this Lady Cantrip could give no answer. Whatever cause for anger the Duke might have against Mrs. Finn, there had been cause for much more against his wife. But she had freed herself from all accusation by death.

Lady Mary wrote to her father, declaring that she was most particularly anxious to see him and talk to him about Mrs. Finn.

CHAPTER XIII

The Duke's Injustice

No advantage whatever was obtained by Lady Mary's interview with her father. He persisted that Mrs. Finn had been untrue to him when she left Matching without telling him all that she knew of his daughter's engagement with Mr. Tregear. No doubt by degrees that idea which he at first entertained was expelled from his head,--the idea that she had been cognisant of the whole thing before she came to Matching; but even this was done so slowly that there was no moment at which he became aware of any lessened feeling of indignation. To his thinking she had betrayed her trust, and he could not be got by his daughter to say that he would forgive her. He certainly could not be got to say that he would apologise for the accusation he had made. It was nothing less that his daughter asked; and he could hardly refrain himself from anger when she asked it. "There should not have been a moment," he said, "before she came to me and told me all." Poor Lady Mary's position was certainly uncomfortable enough. The great sin,--the sin which was so great that to have known it for a day without revealing it was in itself a d.a.m.ning sin on the part of Mrs.

Finn,--was Lady Mary's sin. And she differed so entirely from her father as to think that this sin of her own was a virtue, and that to have spoken of it to him would have been, on the part of Mrs. Finn, a treachery so deep that no woman ought to have forgiven it! When he spoke of a matter which deeply affected his honour,--she could hardly refrain from a.s.serting that his honour was quite safe in his daughter's hands. And when in his heart he declared that it should have been Mrs. Finn's first care to save him from disgrace, Lady Mary did break out. "Papa, there could be no disgrace." "That for a moment shall be laid aside," he said, with that manner by which even his peers in council had never been able not to be awed, "but if you communicate with Mrs. Finn at all you must make her understand that I regard her conduct as inexcusable."

Nothing had been gained, and poor Lady Mary was compelled to write a few lines which were to her most painful in writing.

MY DEAR MRS. FINN,

I have seen papa, and he thinks that you ought to have told him when I told you. It occurs to me that that would have been a cruel thing to do, and most unfair to Mr.

Tregear, who was quite willing to go to papa, and had only put off doing so because of poor mamma's death. As I had told mamma, of course it was right that he should tell papa. Then I told you, because you were so kind to me! I am so sorry that I have got you into this trouble; but what can I do?

I told him I must write to you. I suppose it is better that I should, although what I have to say is so unpleasant. I hope it will all blow over in time, because I love you dearly. You may be quite sure of one thing,--that I shall never change. [In this a.s.surance the writer was alluding not to her friendship for her friend but her love for her lover,--and so the friend understood her.] I hope things will be settled some day, and then we may be able to meet.

Your very affectionate Friend,

MARY PALLISER.

Mrs. Finn, when she received this, was alone in her house in Park Lane. Her husband was down in the North of England. On this subject she had not spoken to him, fearing that he would feel himself bound to take some steps to support his wife under the treatment she had received. Even though she must quarrel with the Duke, she was most anxious that her husband should not be compelled to do so. Their connection had been political rather than personal. There were many reasons why there should be no open cause of disruption between them.

But her husband was hot-headed, and, were all this to be told him and that letter shown to him which the Duke had written, there would be words between him and the Duke which would probably make impossible any further connection between them.

It troubled her very much. She was by no means not alive to the honour of the Duke's friendship. Throughout her intimacy with the d.u.c.h.ess she had abstained from pressing herself on him, not because she had been indifferent about him, but that she had perceived that she might make her way with him better by standing aloof than by thrusting herself forward. And she had known that she had been successful. She could tell herself with pride that her conduct towards him had been always such as would become a lady of high spirit and fine feeling. She knew that she had deserved well of him, that in all her intercourse with him, with his uncle, and with his wife, she had given much and had taken little. She was the last woman in the world to let a word on such a matter pa.s.s her lips; but not the less was she conscious of her merit towards him. And she had been led to act as she had done by sincere admiration for the man. In all their political troubles, she had understood him better than the d.u.c.h.ess had done. Looking on from a distance she had understood the man's character as it had come to her both from his wife and from her own husband.

That he was unjust to her,--cruelly unjust, she was quite sure. He accused her of intentional privity to a secret which it behoved him to know, and of being a party to that secrecy. Whereas from the moment in which she had heard the secret she had determined that it must be made known to him. She felt that she had deserved his good opinion in all things, but in nothing more than in the way in which she had acted in this matter. And yet he had treated her with an imperious harshness which amounted to insolence. What a letter it was that he had written to her! The very tips of her ears tingled with heat as she read it again to herself. None of the ordinary courtesies of epistle-craft had been preserved either in the beginning or in the end. It was worse even than if he had called her Madam without an epithet. "The Duke understands--" "The Duke thinks--" "The Duke feels--" feels that he should not be troubled with either letters or conversation; the upshot of it all being that the Duke declared her to have shown herself unworthy of being treated like a lady! And this after all that she had done!

She would not bear it. That at present was all that she could say to herself. She was not angry with Lady Mary. She did not doubt but that the girl had done the best in her power to bring her father to reason. But because Lady Mary had failed, she, Mrs. Finn, was not going to put up with so grievous an injury. And she was forced to bear all this alone! There was none with whom she could communicate;--no one from whom she could ask advice. She would not bring her husband into a quarrel which might be prejudicial to his position as a member of his political party. There was no one else to whom she would tell the secret of Lady Mary's love. And yet she could not bear this injustice done to her.

Then she wrote as follows to the Duke:

Mrs. Finn presents her compliments to the Duke of Omnium.

Mrs. Finn finds it to be essential to her that she should see the Duke in reference to his letter to her. If his Grace will let her know on what day and at what hour he will be kind enough to call on her, Mrs. Finn will be at home to receive him.