"John, I must insist upon an answer," said his mother. "I have a right to expect an answer."
"You must do what you like, mother, independently of me. If you think you can live here on your income, I will go away, and you shall have the place."
"That's nonsense, John. Of course you want a large house for the children, and I, if I must be alone, shall only want one room for myself. What should I do with the house?" Then there was silence again for a while.
"I will give you a final answer on Saturday," he said at last. "I shall see Margaret before Saturday."
After that he took his candle and went to bed. It was then Tuesday, and Lady Ball was obliged to be contented with the promise thus made to her.
On Wednesday he did nothing. On the Thursday morning he received a letter which nearly drove him mad. It was addressed to him at the office of the Shadrach Fire Insurance Company, and it reached him there. It was as follows—
Littlebath, — June, 186—.
Sir,
You are no doubt fully aware of all the efforts which I have made during the last six months to secure from your grasp the fortune which did belong to my dear—my dearest friend, Margaret Mackenzie. For as my dearest friend I shall ever regard her, though she and I have been separated by machinations of the nature of which she, as I am fully sure, has never been aware. I now ascertain that some of the inferior law courts have, under what pressure I know not, set aside the will which was made twenty years ago in favour of the Mackenzie family, and given to you the property which did belong to them. That a superior court would reverse the judgment, I believe there is little doubt; but whether or no the means exist for me to bring the matter before the higher tribunals of the country I am not yet aware. Very probably I may have no such power, and in such case, Margaret Mackenzie is, to-day, through your means, a beggar.
Since this matter has been before the public you have ingeniously contrived to mitigate the wrath of public opinion by letting it be supposed that you purposed to marry the lady whose wealth you were seeking to obtain by legal quibbles. You have made your generous intentions very public, and have created a romance that has been, I must say, but little becoming to your age. If all be true that I heard when I last saw Miss Mackenzie at Twickenham, you have gone through some ceremony of proposing to her. But, as I understand, that joke is now thought to have been carried far enough; and as the money is your own, you intend to enjoy yourself as a lion, leaving the lamb to perish in the wilderness.
Now I call upon you to assert, under your own name and with your own signature, what are your intentions with reference to Margaret Mackenzie. Her property, at any rate for the present, is yours. Do you intend to make her your wife, or do you not? And if such be your intention, when do you purpose that the marriage shall take place, and where?
I reserve to myself the right to publish this letter and your answer to it; and of course shall publish the fact if your cowardice prevents you from answering it. Indeed nothing shall induce me to rest in this matter till I know that I have been the means of restoring to Margaret Mackenzie the means of decent livelihood.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your very humble servant,Jeremiah Maguire.
Sir John Ball, Bart., &c., &c,
Shadrach Fire Office.
Sir John, when he had read this, was almost wild with agony and anger. He threw up his hands with dismay as he walked along the passages of the Shadrach Office, and fulminated mental curses against the wasp that was able to sting him so deeply. What should he do to the man? As for answering the letter, that was of course out of the question; but the reptile would carry out his threat of publishing the letter, and then the whole question of his marriage would be discussed in the public prints. An idea came across him that a free press was bad and rotten from the beginning to the end. This creature was doing him a terrible injury, was goading him almost to death, and yet he could not punish him. He was a clergyman, and could not be beaten and kicked, or even fired at with a pistol. As for prosecuting the miscreant, had not his own lawyer told him over and over again that such a prosecution was the very thing which the miscreant desired. And then the additional publicity of such a prosecution, and the twang of false romance which would follow and the horrid alliteration of the story of the two beasts, and all the ridicule of the incidents, crowded upon his mind, and he walked forth from the Shadrach office among the throngs of the city a wretched and almost despairing man.