“So you were with Mollie Trefuses, with Sarah Talbot, with Eliza Capel, with Matilda Howard—and a galaxy of minor beauties.”
“But it has come to this—I wish to marry Miss Moran; and I never wished to marry any other woman.”
“You have forgotten—And by Heaven! you must forget Miss Moran. She is not to be thought of as a wife—for one moment.”
“Sir, you are not so unjust as to make such a statement without giving me a reason for it.”
“Giving you a reason! My reason ought to have sprung up voluntary in your own heart. It is an incredible thing if you are not already familiar with it.”
“Simply, sir, I profess my ignorance.”
“Look around you. Look east, and west, and north, and south,—all these rich lands were bought with your Uncle William’s money. He made himself poor, to make me rich; because, having brought me up as his heir, he thought his marriage late in life had in a manner defrauded me. You know that the death of his two sons has again made me the heir to the Hyde earldom; and that after me, the succession is yours. Tell me now what child is left to your uncle?”
“Only his daughter Annie, a girl of fourteen or fifteen years.”
“What will become of her when her father dies?”
“Sir, how can I divine her future?”