"What do you want?" asked the father, when her hand for a moment ceased to scrawl.
"I want," she said, "Frank Jones. Now you know all about it."
Then she hid her face beneath the bedclothes, and refused to write another word.
He went on talking to her till he had forgotten the Speaker and the rod in pickle. He besought her to think better of it; and if not that, just at present to postpone any action in the matter. He explained to her how very disagreeable it would be to him to have to go to the lord with such a message as she now proposed. But she only enhanced the vehemence of her order by shaking her head as her face lay buried in the pillow.
"Let it wait for one fortnight," said the father.
"No!" said the girl, using her own voice for the effort.
Then the father slowly took himself off, and making his way to the House of Commons, renewed his passion as he went, and had himself again turned out before he had been half-an-hour in the House.
The earl was sitting alone after breakfast two or three days subsequently, thinking in truth of his difficulty with Rachel. It had come to be manifest to him that he must marry the girl unless something terrible should occur to her. "She might die," he said to himself very sadly, trying to think of cases in which singers had died from neglected throats. And it did make him very sad. He could not think of the perishing of that magnificent treble without great grief; and, after his fashion, he did love her personally. He did not know that he could ever love anyone very much better. He had certainly thought that it would be a good thing that his father and mother and sister should go and live in foreign lands,—in order, in short, that they might never more be heard of to trouble him,—but he did not even contemplate their deaths, so sweet-minded was he. But in the first fury of his love he had thought how nice it would be to be left with his singing girl, and no one to trouble him. Now there came across him an idea that something was due to the Marquis of Beaulieu,—something, that is, to his own future position; and what could he do with a singing girl for his wife who could not sing?
He was unhappy as he thought of it all, and would ever and again, as he meditated, be stirred up to mild anger when he remembered that he had been told that "the truth would suffer." He had intended, at any rate, that his singing girl should be submissive and obedient while in his hands. But here had been an outbreak of passion! And here was this confounded O'Mahony ready to make a fool of himself at a moment's notice before all the world. At that moment the door was opened and Mr. O'Mahony was shown into the room.
"Oh! dear," exclaimed the lord, "how do you do, Mr. O'Mahony? I hope I see you well."