“What is it, Father?” she said, looking up in some trepidation.
“Tell me, my daughter,—should it give thee very great sorrow, if thou wert never to see this young man again?”
“What, Father?—O Father!”
“My poor child!” he sighed. “My poor, straying, unguarded child!”
Blanche was almost frightened. Her father seemed to her to be coming out in entirely a new character. At this juncture Lady Enville laid down the comedy, and thought proper to interpose.
“Doth Don John love thee, Blanche?”
Blanche felt quite sure of that, and she intimated as much, but in a very low voice.
“And thou lovest him?”
With a good many knots and twists of the gold chain, Blanche confessed this also.
“Now really, Sir Thomas, what would you?” suggested his wife, re-opening the discussion. “Could there be a better establishing for the maiden than so? ’Twere easy to lay down rule, and win his promise, that he should not seek to disturb her faith in no wise. Many have done the like—”