During the following week the communication between Harrington and Matching were very frequent. There were no further direct messages between Tregear and Lady Mary, but she heard daily of his progress. The Duke was conscious of the special interest which existed in his house as to the condition of the young man, but, after his arrival not a word had been spoken for some days between him and his daughter on the subject. Then Gerald went back to his college, and the Duke made his preparations for going up to town and making some attempt at parliamentary activity.
It was by no concert that an attack was made upon him from three quarters at once as he was preparing to leave Matching. On the Sunday morning during church time, for on that day Lady Mary went to her devotions alone,--Mrs Finn was closeted an hour with the Duke in his study. 'I think you ought to be aware,' she said to the Duke, 'that though I trust Mary implicitly and know her to be thoroughly high principled, I cannot be responsible for her, if I remain here.'
'I do not quite follow your meaning.'
'Of course there is but one matter on which there can, probably, be any difference between us. If she should choose to write to Mr Tregear, or to send him any message, or even to go to him, I could not prevent it.'
'Go to him!' exclaimed the horrified Duke.
'I merely suggest such a thing in order to make you understand that I have absolutely no control over her.'
'What control have I?'
'Nay; I cannot define that. You are her father, and she acknowledges your authority. She regards me as a friend,--and as such treats me with the sweetest affection. Nothing can be more gratifying than her manner to me personally.'
'It ought to be so.'
'She has thoroughly won my heart. But still I know that if there were a difference between us she would not obey me. Why should she?'
'Because you hold my deputed authority.'
'Oh, Duke, that goes for very little anywhere. No one can depute authority. It comes too much from personal accidents, and too little from reason or law to be handed over to others. Besides, I fear, that on one matter concerning her you and I are not agreed.'
'I shall be sorry if it be so.'
'I feel that I am bound to tell you my opinion.'
'Oh yes.'
'You think that in the end Lady Mary will allow herself to be separated from Tregear. I think that in the end they will become man and wife.'
This seemed to the Duke to be not quite so bad as it might have been. Any speculation as to results were very different from an expressed opinion as to propriety. Were he to tell the truth as to his own mind, he might perhaps have said the same thing. But one is not to relax in one's endeavours to prevent that which is wrong, because one fears that the wrong may be ultimately perpetuated. 'Let that be as it may,' he said, 'it cannot alter my duty.'
'Nor mine, Duke, if I may presume to think that I have a duty in this matter.'
'That you should encounter the burden of the duty binds me to you for ever.'
'If it be that they will certainly be married one day--'
'Who has said that? Who has admitted that?'
'If it be so; if it seems to me that it must be so,--then how can I be anxious to prolong her sufferings? She does suffer terribly.'
Upon this the Duke frowned, but there was more of tenderness in his frown than in the hard smile which he had hitherto worn. 'I do not know whether you see it all.' He well remembered all that he had seen when he and Mary were travelling together. 'I see it, and I do not pass half an hour with her without sorrowing for her.'
On hearing this he sighed and turned his face away. 'Girls are so different! There are many who though they be genuinely in love, though their natures are sweet and affectionate, are not strong enough to support their own feelings in resistance to the will of those who have authority over them.' Had it been so with his wife? At this moment all the former history passed through his mind. 'They yield to that which seems to be inevitable, and allow themselves to be fashioned by the purposes of others. It is well for them often that they are so plastic. Whether it would be better for her that she should be so I will not say.'
'It would be better,' said the Duke doggedly.
'But such is not her nature. She is as determined as ever.'
'I may be determined too.'
'But if at last it will be of no use,--if it be her fate either to be married to this man or to die of a broken heart,--'
'What justifies you in saying that? How can you torture me by such a threat?'
'If I think so, Duke, I am justified. Of late I have been with her daily,--almost hourly. I do not say that this will kill her now,--in her youth. It is not often, I fancy, that women die after that fashion. But a broken heart may bring the sufferer to the grave after a lapse of many years. How will it be with you if she should live like a ghost beside you for the next twenty years, and you should then see her die, faded and withered before her time,--all her life gone without a joy,--because she had loved a man whose position in life was displeasing to you? Would the ground on which the sacrifices had been made then justify itself to you? In that performing your duty to your order would you feel satisfied that you had performed that to your child?'