The end came. She stole one afternoon from the time-honoured walls of Broxbridge, and eloped with Signor Montini.
It would be impossible to describe the despair of Lord Ethalwood when he heard of his daughter’s flight. He was frantic for a time, after which he was preternaturally calm; but a storm raged within more terrible than any sudden burst of passion. She had written to him avowing her love for Montini, and informing him at the same time that she took it for granted he would never give his consent. Hence it was she had consented to a clandestine marriage. She implored him to forgive her, to pity and pardon her for her disobedience.
No member of the old Inquisition could have looked more relentless and spectral than did the lord of Broxbridge when he read this epistle.
“She has passed from me, even as did her mother,” he ejaculated, in a low deep whisper. “Even as did her mother,” he repeated, like the burthen of a song. “Fool that I was, I never counted on this blow.”
He took an oath never to look upon her face again. Dear as she had been to him, he was resolved upon thinking only of her as one dead.
This terrible oath he kept unbroken.
He knew but little of Montini, and, strange to say, he was not so embittered against him as might have been supposed. The full measure of his wrath fell upon the head of his undutiful thankless daughter. His love for her had changed to the most deadly hate, which neither time nor circumstances would change.
He was relentless. As far as he was concerned, the noble sentiments conveyed in the words of a celebrated poet, “To err is human; to forgive, divine,” never for a moment passed through his mind.
She had brought disgrace upon him. She had sullied the name of Ethalwood by running away with a low-born foreigner, a miserable teacher. The thought was agony. He never would acknowledge her—never more.
It was something fearful to witness the inexorable determination of the injured and unforgiving father, who never for a moment reflected that he was in some measure responsible for the misfortune which had befallen him. Had he been less exacting, given her a wider sphere of action, the chances would have been she would not have been forced into the error which brought with it so much misery.