“Yes; and that he might add that I myself had refused the see of Llandaff, preferring the command of the West India Squadron. But, what's this? What do you want now, Richard?”
“The gentleman upstairs, sir, insists on my presenting his card.”
“Oh, indeed!—Captain Forester!—I 'll see him at once.” And, so saying, Daly hastened upstairs to the drawing-room, where the young officer awaited him.
Daly was not in a mood to scrutinize very closely the appearance of his visitor, but he could not fail to feel struck at the alteration in his looks since last they met; his features were paler and marked by sorrow, so much so that Daly's first question was, “Have you been ill?” and as Forester answered in the negative, the old man fixed his eyes steadily on him, and said, “You have heard of our misfortune, then?”
“Misfortune! no. What do you mean?”
Daly hesitated, uncertain how to reply, whether to leave to time and some other channel to announce the Knight's ruin, or at once communicate it with his own lips.
“Yes, it is the better way,” said he, half aloud, while, taking Forester's hand, he led him over to a sofa, and pressed him down beside him. “I seldom have made an error in guessing a man's character, throughout a long and somewhat remarkable life. I think I am safe in saying that you feel a warm interest in my friend Darcy's family?”
“You do me but justice; gratitude alone, if I had no stronger motive, secures them every good wish of mine.”
“But you have stronger motives, young man,” said Daly, looking at him with a piercing glance; “if you had not, I 'd think but meanly of you, nor did I want that blush to tell me so.”
Forester looked down in confusion. The abruptness of the address so completely unmanned him that he could make no answer. While Daly went on: “I force no confidences, young man, nor have I any right to ask them; enough for my present purpose that I know you care deeply for this family; now, sir, but a week back the ambition to be allied with them had satisfied the proudest wish of the proudest house—to-day they are ruined.”