"Yes, that;—all of that. He tells me that, and then says that there shall be no more words spoken or written about it. I can hardly submit to so stern a judgment. You know the truth, Lady Mary."
"Do not call me Lady Mary. Do not quarrel with me."
"If your father has quarrelled with me, it would not be fit that you and I should be friends. Your duty to him would forbid it. I should not have come to you now did I not feel that I am bound to justify myself. The thing of which I am accused is so repugnant to me, that I am obliged to do something and to say something, even though the subject itself be one on which I would so willingly be silent."
"What can I do, Mrs. Finn?"
"It was Mr. Tregear who first told me that your father was angry with me. He knew what I had done and why, and he was bound to tell me in order that I might have an opportunity of setting myself right with the Duke. Then I wrote and explained everything,—how you had told me of the engagement, and how I had then urged Mr. Tregear that he should not keep such a matter secret from your father. In answer to my letter I have received—that."
"Shall I write and tell papa?"
"He should be made to understand that from the moment in which I heard of the engagement I was urgent with you and with Mr. Tregear that he should be informed of it. You will remember what passed."
"I remember it all."
"I did not conceive it to be my duty to tell the Duke myself, but I did conceive it to be my duty to see he should be told. Now he writes as though I had known the secret from the first, and as though I had been concealing it from him at the very moment in which he was asking me to remain at Matching on your behalf. That I consider to be hard,—and unjust. I cannot deny what he says. I did know of it while I was at Matching, for it was at Matching that you told me. But he implies that I knew it before. When you told me your story I did feel that it was my duty to see that the matter was not kept longer from him;—and I did my duty. Now your father takes upon himself to rebuke me,—and takes upon himself at the same time to forbid me to write to him again!"
"I will tell him all, Mrs. Finn."