The Duke's Children

by Anthony Trollope

"Yes, sir."

"Do you not know what my wishes are?"

"Certainly I do;—but I could not help his coming. You do not suppose that anybody had planned it?"

"I hope not."

"It was simply an accident. Such an accident as must occur over and over again,—unless Mary is to be locked up."

"Who talks of locking anybody up? What right have you to speak in that way?"

"I only meant that of course they will stumble across each other in London."

"I think I will go abroad," said the Duke. He was silent for awhile, and then repeated his words. "I think I will go abroad."

"Not for long, I hope, sir."

"Yes;—to live there. Why should I stay here? What good can I do here? Everything I see and everything I hear is a pain to me." The young man of course could not but go back in his mind to the last interview which he had had with his father, when the Duke had been so gracious and apparently so well pleased.