Mrs. Finn could not but remember that the friend she had lost was not, among women, the one best able to give a girl good counsel in such a crisis.

"Why not yet, dear?"

"Well, because--. It is very hard to explain. In the first place, because Mr. Tregear himself does not wish it."

"That is a very bad reason; the worst in the world."

"Of course you will say so. Of course everybody would say so. But when there is one person whom one loves better than all the rest, for whom one would be ready to die, to whom one is determined that everything shall be devoted, surely the wishes of a person so dear as that ought to have weight."

"Not in persuading you to do that which is acknowledged to be wrong."

"What wrong? I am going to do nothing wrong."

"The very concealment of your love is wrong, after that love has been not only given but declared. A girl's position in such matters is so delicate, especially that of such a girl as you!"

"I know all about that," said Lady Mary, with something almost approaching to scorn in her tone. "Of course I have to be--delicate.

I don't quite know what the word means. I am not a bit ashamed of being in love with Mr. Tregear. He is a gentleman, highly educated, very clever, of an old family,--older, I believe, than papa's. And he is manly and handsome; just what a young man ought to be. Only he is not rich."

"If he be all that you say, ought you not to trust your papa? If he approve of it, he could give you money."

"Of course he must be told; but not now. He is nearly broken-hearted about dear mamma. He could not bring himself to care about anything of that kind at present. And then it is Mr. Tregear that should speak to him first."

"Not now, Mary."

"How do you mean not now?"

"If you had a mother you would talk to her about it."

"Mamma knew."

"If she were still living she would tell your father."

"But she didn't tell him though she did know. She didn't mean to tell him quite yet. She wanted to see Mr. Tregear here in England first.

Of course I shall do nothing till papa does know."

"You will not see him?"

"How can I see him here? He will not come here, if you mean that."

"You do not correspond with him?" Here for the first time the girl blushed. "Oh, Mary, if you are writing to him your father ought to know it."

"I have not written to him; but when he heard how ill poor mamma was, then he wrote to me--twice. You may see his letters. It is all about her. No one worshipped mamma as he did."

Gradually the whole story was told. These two young persons considered themselves to be engaged, but had agreed that their engagement should not be made known to the Duke till something had occurred, or some time had arrived, as to which Mr. Tregear was to be the judge. In Mrs. Finn's opinion nothing could be more unwise, and she said much to induce the girl to confess everything to her father at once. But in all her arguments she was opposed by the girl's reference to her mother. "Mamma knew it." And it did certainly seem to Mrs. Finn as though the mother had a.s.sented to this imprudent concealment. When she endeavoured, in her own mind, to make excuse for her friend, she felt almost sure that the d.u.c.h.ess, with all her courage, had been afraid to propose to her husband that their daughter should marry a commoner without an income. But in thinking of all that, there could now be nothing gained. What ought she to do--at once? The girl, in telling her, had exacted no promise of secrecy, nor would she have given any such promise; but yet she did not like the idea of telling the tale behind the girl's back. It was evident that Lady Mary had considered herself to be safe in confiding her story to her mother's old friend. Lady Mary no doubt had had her confidences with her mother,--confidences from which it had been intended by both that the father should be excluded; and now she seemed naturally to expect that this new ally should look at this great question as her mother had looked at it. The father had been regarded as a great outside power, which could hardly be overcome, but which might be evaded, or made inoperative by stratagem. It was not that the daughter did not love him. She loved him and venerated him highly,--the veneration perhaps being stronger than the love. The d.u.c.h.ess, too, had loved him dearly,--more dearly in late years than in her early life. But her husband to her had always been an outside power which had in many cases to be evaded. Lady Mary, though she did not express all this, evidently thought that in this new friend she had found a woman whose wishes and aspirations for her would be those which her mother had entertained.

But Mrs. Finn was much troubled in her mind, thinking that it was her duty to tell the story to the Duke. It was not only the daughter who had trusted her, but the father also; and the father's confidence had been not only the first but by far the holier of the two. And the question was one so important to the girl's future happiness! There could be no doubt that the peril of her present position was very great.

"Mary," she said one morning, when the fortnight was nearly at an end, "your father ought to know all this. I should feel that I had betrayed him were I to go away leaving him in ignorance."

"You do not mean to say that you will tell?" said the girl, horrified at the idea of such treachery.

"I wish that I could induce you to do so. Every day that he is kept in the dark is an injury to you."

"I am doing nothing. What harm can come? It is not as though I were seeing him every day."

"This harm will come; your father of course will know that you became engaged to Mr. Tregear in Italy, and that a fact so important to him has been kept back from him."

"If there is anything in that, the evil has been done already. Of course poor mamma did mean to tell him."

"She cannot tell him now, and therefore you ought to do what she would have done."

"I cannot break my promise to him." "Him" always meant Mr. Tregear.

"I have told him that I would not do so till I had his consent, and I will not."

This was very dreadful to Mrs. Finn, and yet she was most unwilling to take upon herself the part of a stern elder, and declare that under the circ.u.mstances she must tell the tale. The story had been told to her under the supposition that she was not a stern elder, that she was regarded as the special friend of the dear mother who was gone, that she might be trusted to a.s.sist against the terrible weight of parental authority. She could not endure to be regarded at once as a traitor by this young friend who had sweetly inherited the affection with which the d.u.c.h.ess had regarded her. And yet if she were to be silent how could she forgive herself? "The Duke certainly ought to know at once," said she, repeating her words merely that she might gain some time for thinking, and pluck up courage to declare her purpose, should she resolve on betraying the secret.

"If you tell him now, I will never forgive you," said Lady Mary.

"I am bound in honour to see that your father knows a thing which is of such vital importance to him and to you. Having heard all this I have no right to keep it from him. If Mr. Tregear really loves you"--Lady Mary smiled at the doubt implied by this suggestion--"he ought to feel that for your sake there should be no secret from your father." Then she paused a moment to think. "Will you let me see Mr.

Tregear myself, and talk to him about it?"

To this Lady Mary at first demurred, but when she found that in no other way could she prevent Mrs. Finn from going at once to the Duke and telling him everything, she consented. Under Mrs. Finn's directions she wrote a note to her lover, which Mrs. Finn saw, and then undertook to send it, with a letter from herself, to Mr.

Tregear's address in London. The note was very short, and was indeed dictated by the elder lady, with some dispute, however, as to certain terms, in which the younger lady had her way. It was as follows:

DEAREST FRANK,

I wish you to see Mrs. Finn, who, as you know, was dear mamma's most particular friend. Please go to her, as she will ask you to do. When you hear what she says I think you ought to do what she advises.

Yours for ever and always,

M. P.

This Mrs. Finn sent enclosed in an envelope, with a few words from herself, asking the gentleman to call upon her in Park Lane, on a day and at an hour fixed.

CHAPTER III

Francis Oliphant Tregear

Mr. Francis Oliphant Tregear was a young man who might not improbably make a figure in the world, should circ.u.mstances be kind to him, but as to whom it might be doubted whether circ.u.mstances would be sufficiently kind to enable him to use serviceably his unquestionable talents and great personal gifts. He had taught himself to regard himself as a young English gentleman of the first water, qualified by his birth and position to live with all that was most n.o.ble and most elegant; and he could have lived in that sphere naturally and gracefully were it not that the part of the "sphere" which he specially affected requires wealth as well as birth and intellect.

Wealth he had not, and yet he did not abandon the sphere. As a consequence of all this, it was possible that the predictions of his friends as to that figure which he was to make in the world might be disappointed.

He had been educated at Eton, from whence he had been sent to Christ Church; and both at school and at college had been the most intimate friend of the son and heir of a great and wealthy duke. He and Lord Silverbridge had been always together, and they who were interested in the career of the young n.o.bleman had generally thought he had chosen his friend well. Tregear had gone out in honours, having been a second-cla.s.s man. His friend Silverbridge, we know, had been allowed to take no degree at all; but the terrible practical joke by which the whole front of the Dean's house had been coloured scarlet in the middle of the night, had been carried on without any a.s.sistance from Tregear. The two young men had then been separated for a year; but immediately after taking his degree, Tregear, at the invitation of Lord Silverbridge, had gone to Italy, and had there completely made good his footing with the d.u.c.h.ess,--with what effect on another member of the Palliser family the reader already knows.