"I have taken care to find out the truth. What a life! And what a death! He is there all alone. Nobody ever sees him but an Italian doctor. If it's a boy, my dear, he will be my lord as soon as he's born; or for the matter of that, if it's a girl she will be my lady."
"I wish it wasn't so."
"You must take it all as God sends it, Mary."
"They've talked about it till I'm sick of it," said Mary angrily. Then she checked herself and added—"I don't mean you, papa; but at Manor Cross they all flatter me now, because that poor man is dying. If you were me you wouldn't like that."
"You've got to bear it, my dear. It's the way of the world. People at the top of the tree are always flattered. You can't expect that Mary Lovelace and the Marchioness of Brotherton will be treated in the same way."
"Of course it made a difference when I was married."
"But suppose you had married a curate in the neighbourhood."
"I wish I had," said Mary wildly, "and that someone had given him the living of Pugsty." But it all tended in the same direction. She began to feel now that it must be, and must be soon. She would, she told herself, endeavour to do her duty; she would be loving to all who had been kind to her, and kind even to those who had been unkind. To all of them at Manor Cross she would be a real sister,—even to Lady Susanna whom certainly she had not latterly loved. She would forgive everybody,—except one. Adelaide Houghton she never could forgive, but Adelaide Houghton should be her only enemy. It did not occur to her that Jack De Baron had been
very nearly as wicked as Adelaide Houghton. She certainly did not intend that Jack De Baron should be one of her enemies.
When she had been in London about a week or two Jack De Baron came to see her. She knew that he had spent his Christmas at Curry Hall, and she knew that Guss Mildmay had also been there. That Guss Mildmay should have accepted such an invitation was natural enough, but she thought that Jack had been very foolish. Why should he have gone to the house when he had known that the girl whom he had promised to marry, but whom he did not intend to marry, was there? And now what was to be the result? She did not think that she could ask him; but she was almost sure that he would tell her.