Mr. Darrell was not alone. His wife was sitting with her back to the window, very pale, and with an angry brightness in her eyes.
"Sit down, Miss Crofton," Mr. Darrell said very coldly; "and you, Milly, come here."
She went towards him with a slow faltering step, and sank down into the chair to which he pointed, looking at him all the time in an eager beseeching way that I think must have gone to his heart. He was standing with his back to the empty fireplace, and remained standing throughout the interview.
"I think you know that I love you, Milly," he began, "and that your happiness is the chief desire of my mind."
"I"m sure of that, papa."
"And yet you have deceived me."
"Deceived you? O papa, in what way?"
"By encouraging the hopes of a man whom you must have known I would never receive as your husband; by suffering your feelings to become engaged, without one word of warning to me, and in a manner that you must have known could not fail to be most obnoxious to me."
"O papa, I did not know; it was only yesterday that Mr. Egerton spoke for the first time. There has been nothing hidden from you."
"Nothing? Do you call your intimate acquaintance with this man nothing?
He may have delayed any actual declaration until my return--with an artful appearance of consideration for me; but some kind of love-affair must have been going on between you all the time."
"No, indeed, papa; until yesterday there was never anything but the most ordinary acquaintance. Mary knows--"
"Pray don"t appeal to Miss Crofton," her father interrupted sternly.
"Miss Crofton has done very wrong in encouraging this affair. Miss Crofton heard my opinion of Angus Egerton a long time ago."
"Mary has done nothing to encourage our acquaintance. It has been altogether a matter of accident from first to last. What have you said to Mr. Egerton, papa? Tell me at once, please."
She said this with a quiet firmness, looking bravely up at him all the while.
"I have told him that nothing would induce me to consent to such a marriage. I have forbidden him ever to see you again."
"That seems very hard, papa."
"I thought you knew my opinion of Mr. Egerton."
"It would change if you knew more of him."
"Never. I might like him very well as a member of society; I could never approve of him as a son-in-law. Besides, I have other views for you--long-cherished views--which I hope you will not disappoint."
"I don"t know what you mean by that, papa; but I know that I can never marry any one except Mr. Egerton. I may never marry at all, if you refuse to change your decision upon this subject; but I am quite sure I shall never be the wife of any one else."
Her father looked at her angrily. That hard expression about the lower part of the face, which I had noticed in his portrait and in himself from the very first, was intensified to-day. He looked a stern resolute man, whose will was not to be moved by a daughter"s pleading.
"We shall see about that by and by," he said. "I am not going to have my plans defeated by a girl"s folly. I have been a very indulgent father, but I am not a weak or yielding one. You will have to obey me, Milly, or you will find yourself a substantial sufferer by and by."
"If you mean that you will disinherit me, papa, I am quite willing that you should do that," Milly answered resolutely. "Perhaps you think Mr.
Egerton cares for my fortune. Put him to the test, papa. Tell him that you will give me nothing, and that he may take me on that condition."
Augusta Darrell turned upon her stepdaughter with a sudden look in her face that was almost like a flame.
"Do you think him so disinterested?" she asked. "Have you such supreme confidence in his affection?"
"Perfect confidence."
"And you do not believe that mercenary considerations have any weight with him? You do not think that he is eager to repair his shattered fortunes? You think him all truth and devotion? He, a _blase_ man of the world, of three-and-thirty; a man who has outlived the possibility of anything like a real attachment; a man who lavished his whole stock of feeling upon the one attachment of his youth."
She said all this very quietly, but with a suppressed bitterness. I think it needed all her powers of restraint to keep her from some pa.s.sionate outburst that would have betrayed the secret of her life. I was now more than ever convinced that she had known Angus Egerton in the past, and that she had loved him.
"You see, I am not afraid of his being put to the test," Milly said proudly. "I know he loved some one very dearly, a long time ago. He spoke of that yesterday. He told me that his old love had died out of his heart years ago."
"He told you a lie," cried Mrs. Darrell. "Such things never die. They sleep, perhaps--like the creatures that hide themselves in the ground and lie torpid all the winter--but with one breath of the past they flame into life again."
"I am not going to make any such foolish trial of your lover"s faith, Milly," said Mr. Darrell. "Whether your fortune is or is not a paramount consideration with him can make no possible difference in my decision. Nothing will ever induce me to consent to your marrying him.
Of course, if you choose to defy me, you are of age and your own mistress; but on the day that makes you Angus Egerton"s wife you will cease to be my daughter."
"Papa," cried Milly, "you will break my heart."
"Nonsense, child; hearts are not easily broken. Let me hear no more of this unfortunate business. I have spoken to you very plainly, in order that there might be no chance of misunderstanding between us; and I rely upon your honour that there shall be no clandestine meeting between you and Angus Egerton in the future. I look to you, Miss Crofton, also, and shall hold you answerable for any accidental encounters out walking."
"You need not be afraid, papa," Milly answered disconsolately. "I daresay Mr. Egerton will leave Yorkshire, as he spoke of doing yesterday."
"I hope he may," said Mr. Darrell.
Milly rose to leave the room. Half-way towards the door she stopped, and turned her white despairing face towards her father with a hopeless look.
"I shall obey you, papa," she said. "I could not bear to forfeit your love, even for his sake. But I think you will break my heart."
Mr. Darrell went over to her and kissed her.
"I am acting best for your ultimate happiness, Milly, be sure of that,"
he said in a kinder tone than he had used before. "There, my love, go and be happy with Miss Crofton, and let us all agree to forget this business as quickly as possible."
This was our dismissal. We went back to Milly"s pretty sitting-room, where the sun was shining and the warm summer air blowing on birds and flowers, and books and drawing materials, and all the airy trifles that had made our lives pleasant to us until that hour. Milly sat on a low stool at my feet, and buried her face in my lap, refusing all comfort.
She sat like this for about an hour, weeping silently, and then rose suddenly and wiped the tears from her pale face.
"I am not going to lead you a miserable life about this, Mary," she said. "We will never speak of it after to-day. And I will try to do my duty to papa, and bear my life without that new happiness, which made it seem so bright. Do you think Mr. Egerton will feel the disappointment very much, Mary?"
"He cannot help feeling it, dear, if he loves you--as I believe he does."
"And we might have been so happy together! I was dreaming of c.u.mber Priory all last night. I thought it had been restored with some of my money, and that the old house was full of life and brightness. Will he go away, do you think, Mary?"
"I should think it very likely."
"And I shall never see him any more. I could not forfeit papa"s love, Mary."
"It would be a hard thing if you were to do that for the sake of a stranger, dear."
"No, no, Mary; he is not a stranger to me; Angus Egerton is not a stranger. I know that he is n.o.ble and good. But my father was all the world to me a year ago. I could not do without his love. I must obey him."