“May I know how things stand?” he enquired abruptly.
“May you? Who has a better right than yourself, dear Owen? Come you out with me, and let us have a few words together.”
Owen followed his host.
“It has been a trying day—a sad and trying one. But I need not tell you that—you, whose grief is so much greater than mine own, even. Though you, at least, Owen, have nothing to reproach yourself with, whereas I am responsible for the weakness in my poor child which has led to this unhappy state of affairs. But at least she is fully sensible of error—she knows what she has done.”
It would be strange indeed if she did not, Owen reflected, in the universal bouleversement that had characterized Valeria’s surroundings ever since her sudden departure from the conventions.
“To my surprise, Lucilla, upon whose judgment I place a certain reliance, although it may sound somewhat odd to hear of a father seeking counsel of his child—Lucilla advocates my sanctioning her sister’s marriage. My first instinct was of course to cut her short at the mention of anything so premature—so—so lacking in all taste or feeling. But—I hardly know——”
“There is nothing against Captain Cuscaden, is there?”
Quentillian made the observation in the simple hope of expediting the Canon’s decision, but he immediately perceived that it led him open once more to the imputation of high-minded generosity.
“I mean to say, he can afford to marry?” he amended hastily.
“He has satisfied me upon that score,” Canon Morchard admitted. “I have never desired wealth for my dear ones, nor have they been brought up to it. Valeria is not unfitted to become the wife of a poor man. Nay, had she but acted an honourable and high-minded part throughout, I should gladly send her forth into the New World. Valeria has something of the pioneer spirit, I have always felt.”