He kneeled down by her side, the stout old warrior, and read the letter, while she clung to him, moaning now, and quivering all over from head to foot.
“Why, there's no signature! The writer is a coward and, perhaps, a liar. Stop! he offers a test. I'll put him to it this minute.”
He laid the moaning girl on the sofa, ordered his servants to admit nobody into the house, and drove at once to Mayfair.
He called at Miss Somerset's house, saw Polly, and questioned her.
He drove home again, and came into the drawing-room looking as he had been seen to look when fighting his ship; but his daughter had never seen him so. “My girl,” said he, solemnly, “there's nothing for you to do but to be brave, and hide your grief as well as you can, for the man is unworthy of your love. That coward spoke the truth. He is there at this moment.”
“Oh, papa! papa! let me die! The world is too wicked for me. Let me die!”
“Die for an unworthy object? For shame! Go to your own room, my girl, and pray to your God to help you, since your mother has left us. Oh, how I miss her now! Go and pray, and let no one else know what we suffer. Be your father's daughter. Fight and pray.”
Poor Bella had no longer to complain that she was not commanded. She kissed him, and burst into a great passion of weeping; but he led her to the door, and she tottered to her own room, a blighted girl.
The sight of her was harrowing. Under its influence the admiral dashed off a letter to Sir Charles, calling him a villain, and inviting him to go to France and let an indignant father write scoundrel on his carcass.
But when he had written this his good sense and dignity prevailed over his fury; he burned the letter, and wrote another. This he sent by hand to Sir Charles's house, and ordered his servants—but that the reader knows.