“No indiscretions, Mamma,” cried Helen, holding up her hand.
“Well, he has made my daughter telle que vous la voyez.”
Forester was too well bred to venture on a word of flattery or compliment, but his glowing color and sparkling eyes spoke his admiration.
Lady Eleanor's quick glance remarked this; and, as if the thought had never occurred before, she seemed amazed, either at the fact or at her own previous inattention.
“Let us finish that second volume you were reading, Captain Forester,” said she, glad to cut short the discussion. And, without a word, he took the book and began to read.
CHAPTER XVII. BAGENAL DALY'S JOURNEY TO DUBLIN
It is not our desire to practise any mystery with our reader, nor would the present occasion warrant such. Mr. Daly's hurried departure for Dublin was caused by the receipt of tidings which had that morning reached him, conveying the startling intelligence that his friend the Knight had accepted terms from the Government, and pledged himself to support their favored measure.
It was a time when men were accustomed to witness the most flagrant breaches of honor and good faith. No station was too high to be above the reach of this reproach, no position too humble not to make its possessor a mark for corruption. It was an epidemic of dishonesty, and people ceased to wonder as they heard of each new victim to the malady.
Bagenal Daly well knew that no man could be more exempt from an imputation of this nature than the Knight of Gwynne: every act of his life, every sentiment he professed, every trait of his character, flatly contradicted the supposition. But he also knew that though Darcy was unassailable by all the temptations of bribery, come in what shape they might, that his frank and generous spirit would expose him to the stratagems and devices of a wily and insidious party, and that if, by any accident, an expression should fall from him in all the freedom of convivial enjoyment that could be tortured into even the resemblance of a pledge, he well knew that his friend would deem any sacrifice of personal feeling light in the balance, rather than not adhere to it.