"If you please, sir, we will not go into all that again," said Sir Harry, interrupting him. "I explained to you before, sir, that I would have admitted your future rank as a counterpoise to her fortune, if I could have trusted your character. I cannot trust it. I do not know why you should thrust upon me the necessity of saying all this again. As I believe that you are in pecuniary distress, I made you an offer which I thought to be liberal."
"It was liberal, but it did not suit me to accept it." George had an inkling of what would pass within Sir Harry's bosom as to the acceptance or rejection of that offer. "I wrote to you, declining it, and as I have received no answer, I thought that I would just run down. What was I to do?"
"Do? How can I tell? Pay your debts. The money was offered you."
"I cannot give up my cousin. Has she been allowed to receive the letter which I left for her yesterday?"
Now Sir Harry had doubted much in his own mind as to the letter. During that morning's interview it had still been in his own possession. As he was preparing to leave the house he had made up his mind that she should have it; and Lady Elizabeth had been commissioned to give it her, not without instruction and explanation. Her father would not keep it from her, because he trusted her implicitly; but she was to understand that it could mean nothing to her, and that the letter must not of course be answered.
"It does not matter whether she did or did not," said Sir Harry. "I ask you again, whether you will accept the offer made you by Mr. Boltby, and give me your written promise not to renew this suit."
"I cannot do that, Sir Harry."
Sir Harry did not know how to proceed with the interview. As he had come there, some proposition must be made by himself. Had he intended to be altogether obstinate he should have remained at Humblethwaite, and kept his cousin altogether out of the house. And now his daughter's prayers were ringing in his ears: "Dear Papa, let us see if we cannot try." And then again that assurance which she had made him so solemnly: "Papa, there never can be anybody else!" If the black sheep could be washed white, the good of such washing would on every side be so great! He would have to blush,—let the washing be ever so perfect,—he must always blush in having such a son-in-law; but he had been forced to acknowledge to himself of late, that there was infinitely more of trouble and shame in this world than of joy or honour. Was it not in itself a disgrace that a Hotspur should do such things as this cousin had done; and a disgrace also that his daughter should have loved a man so unfit to be her lover? And then from day to day, and from hour to hour, he remembered that these ills were added to the death of that son, who, had he lived, would have been such a glory to him. More of trouble and disgrace! Was it not all trouble and disgrace? He would have wished that the day might come for him to go away and leave it all, were it not that for one placed as he was placed his own life would not see the end of these troubles. He must endeavour to provide that everything should not go to utter ruin as soon as he should have taken his departure.
He walked about the room, again trying to think. Or, perhaps, all thinking was over with him now, and he was resolving in his own mind how best he might begin to yield. He must obey his daughter. He could not break the heart of the only child that was left to him. He had no delight in the world other than what came to him reflected back from her. He felt now as though he was simply a steward endeavouring on her behalf to manage things to the best advantage; but still only a steward, and as such only a servant who could not at last decide on the mode of management to be adopted. He could endeavour to persuade, but she must decide. Now his daughter had decided, and he must begin this task, so utterly distasteful to him, of endeavouring to wash the blackamoor white.
"What are you willing to do?" he asked.