“Your father has come to me, and offered me your hand, Henrietta, provided I can obtain your consent to his marriage with Miss Brandon. Now, listen to me; and then you can decide.”
Faithful to his promise, he thereupon told her every thing he had learned from Maxime and the count, suppressing only those details which would have made the poor girl blush, and also that terrible charge which he was unwilling to believe.
When he had ended, Henrietta said warmly,—
“What! I should allow my father to marry such a creature? I should sit still and smile when such dishonor and such ruin are coming to a house over which my mother has presided! No; far be it from me ever to be so selfish! I shall oppose Miss Brandon’s plans with all my strength and all my energy.”
“She may triumph, after all.”
“She shall not triumph over my resistance and my contempt. Never—do you hear me, Daniel?—never will I bow down before her. Never shall my hand touch hers. And, if my father persists, I shall ask him, the day before his wedding, to allow me to bury myself in a convent.”
“He will not let you go.”
“Then I shall shut myself up in my room, and never leave it again. I do not think they will drag me out by force.”
There was no mistaking it; she spoke with an earnestness and a determination which nothing could shake or break. And yet the very saddest presentiments oppressed Daniel’s heart. He said,—
“But Miss Brandon will certainly not come alone to this house.”