“I do not see that there is anything to be said,” rejoined the Earl. “You have told me that the young lady is penniless; for the second son of an earl to take a penniless bride is more than foolish—it would be a crime.”
Jack went up to his mother’s room. His path of love was not strewn with rose-leaves and no sunlight fell upon it. Both guardian and father were against him. Perhaps he had been building a castle in the air, for she, too, might refuse him after all. His brother Carolus was his father’s pride, but his mother had always seemed to love him more than her elder son.
Jack felt that he must confide in her, and took the first opportunity, after family affairs had been talked over, to tell of his adventure and of the beautiful girl who had won his love.
His mother proved sympathetic. “I do not see why your father should speak as he did. I was a penniless girl, too, when he made me his bride. We have been very happy together and he has never reproached me for my lack of a fortune. Take courage, Jack; follow the course that the young man whom you call Clarence advised you to take. As he said, all may come out well in the end.”
“But father says that if Carolus should die, he would expect me to marry Lady Angeline.”
“He has no right to expect any such thing,” said his mother. “He has no right to move you about as though you were a pawn on a chess-board, and I have too high an opinion of Lady Angeline to think that she would so soon forget your brother Carolus, to whom she is most devoted. It is possible that in time she might learn to love you, but if you did not love her, why,—“and the Countess laughed,—“there is nothing more to it, Jack, than there is to the light of the firefly. It beckons us on, but it cannot be relied upon to lead us to our destination.”
“I have only one ray of hope,” said Jack. “Mr. Glynne’s son made a very strange remark, and, I nearly forgot, he gave a whistle before he spoke.”
“And what did he say?” asked his mother.
“He told me not to believe all his father said.”
“Ah!” said Lady De Vinne. “Perhaps there is a mystery there. I had a box of books come down from Mudie’s a few days ago, and I have been reading a novel in which a beautiful young girl, being left an orphan, was committed to the charge of her father’s most intimate friend. She was the rightful owner of a large fortune, but her guardian concealed that fact from her and told everybody that she was penniless. I have not finished the story yet, but I have no doubt that in the end the guardian’s duplicity will be shown and that she will regain her fortune and marry the young man whom she loves.”