"Why has he not obeyed me?" demanded the Marquis, angrily. "It is I who have employed him. I have been his patron, and now he turns against me." Thus the Marquis went on till his strength would not suffice for any further talking. Hampstead found himself quite unable to bring him to any other subject on that day. He was sore with the injury done him in that he was not allowed to be the master in his own house.
On the next morning Hampstead heard from Dr. Spicer that his father was in a state of health very far from satisfactory. The doctor recommended that he should be taken away from Trafford, and at last went so far as to say that his advice extended to separating his patient from Lady Kingsbury. "It is, of course, a very disagreeable subject," said the doctor, "for a medical man to meddle with; but, my lord, the truth is that Lady Kingsbury frets him. I don't, of course, care to hear what it is, but there is something wrong." Lord Hampstead, who knew very well what it was, did not attempt to contradict him. When, however, he spoke to his father of the expediency of change of air, the Marquis told him that he would rather die at Trafford than elsewhere.
That his father was really thinking of his death was only too apparent from all that was said and done. As to those matters of business, they were soon settled between them. There was, at any rate, that comfort to the poor man that there was no probability of any difference between him and his heir as to the property or as to money. Half-an-hour settled all that. Then came the time which had been arranged for Hampstead's return to his sister. But before he went there were conversations between him and Mr. Greenwood, between him and his stepmother, and between him and his father, to which, for the sake of our story, it may be as well to refer.
"I think your father is ill-treating me," said Mr. Greenwood. Mr. Greenwood had allowed himself to be talked into a thorough contempt and dislike for the young lord; so that he had almost brought himself to believe in those predictions as to the young lord's death in which Lady Kingsbury was always indulging. As a consequence of this, he now spoke in a voice very different from those obsequious tones which he had before been accustomed to use when he had regarded Lord Hampstead as his young patron.
"I am sure my father would never do that," said Hampstead, angrily.
"It looks very like it. I have devoted all the best of my life to his service, and he now talks of dismissing me as though I were no better than a servant."
"Whatever he does, he will, I am sure, have adequate cause for doing."
"I have done nothing but my duty. It is out of the question that a man in my position should submit to orders as to what he is to talk about and what not. It is natural that Lady Kingsbury should come to me in her troubles."
"If you will take my advice," said Lord Hampstead, in that tone of voice which always produces in the mind of the listener a determination that the special advice offered shall not be taken, "you will comply with my father's wishes while it suits you to live in his house. If you cannot do that, it would become you, I think, to leave it." In every word of this there was a rebuke; and Mr. Greenwood, who did not like being rebuked, remembered it.
"Of course I am nobody in this house now," said the Marchioness in her last interview with her stepson. It is of no use to argue with an angry woman, and in answer to this Hampstead made some gentle murmur which was intended neither to assent or to dispute the proposition made to him. "Because I ventured to disapprove of Mr. Roden as a husband for your sister I have been shut up here, and not allowed to speak to any one."