“Then the sooner you make it up the better it will be for yourself. I’ve been watching you pretty closely for some days—I did not fail to notice a certain jaunty indifference to what was going on around you on the night of your return from that tomfoolery in the boats—seal-hunting, I think they called it. I saw the way you looked at Helen Craven that night. Contempt, or something akin to contempt, was in every glance. Now you know that she is to be at Ella’s in October. You have thus six weeks to make up your mind to marry her. If you make up your mind to marry anyone else, you may make up your mind to live upon the three hundred a year that your mother left you. Not a penny you will get from me. I’ve stinted myself hitherto to secure you your allowance. By heavens, I’ll not do so any longer. You will only receive your allowance from me for another year, and then only by signing a declaration at my lawyer’s to the effect that you are not married. I’ve heard of secret marriages before now, but you needn’t think of that little game. That’s all I’ve to say to you.”
“And it is enough,” said Harold. “Good-bye.” He left the room and then he left the Castle, Lady Innisfail only shaking her head and whispering, “You have disappointed me,” as he made his adieux.
The next day all the guests had departed—all, with the exception of Lord Fotheringay, who was still too ill to move. In the course of some days, however, the doctor thought that he might without risk—except, of course, such as was incidental to the conveyance itself—face a drive on an outside car, to the nearest railway-station.
Before leaving him, as she was compelled to do owing to her own engagements, Lady Innisfail had another interesting conversation—it almost amounted to a consultation—with her friend Mrs. Burgoyne on the subject of the Reform of the Hardened Reprobate. And the result of their further consideration of the subject from every standpoint, was to induce them to believe that, with such a powerful incentive to the Higher Life as an acute rheumatic attack, Lord Fotheringay’s reform might safely be counted on. It might, at any rate, be freely discussed during the winter. If, subsequently, he should become a backslider, it would not matter. His reform would have gone the way of all topics.
Helen Craven and Edmund Airey had also a consultation together on the subject upon which they had previously talked more than once.
Each of them showed such an anxiety to give prominence to the circumstance that they were actuated solely for Harold’s benefit in putting into practice the plan which one of them had suggested, it was pretty clear that they had an uneasy feeling that they required some justification for the course which they had thought well to pursue.
Yes, they agreed that Harold should be placed beyond the power of his father. Mr. Airey said he had never met a more contemptible person than Lord Fotheringay, and for the sake of making Harold independent of such a father, he would, he declared, do again all that he had done during the week of Miss Avon’s sojourn at the Castle.
It was, indeed, sad, Miss Craven felt, that Harold should have such a father.
“Perhaps it was because I felt this so strongly that I—I—well, I began to ask myself if there might not be some way of escape for him,” said she, in a pensive tone that was quite different from the tone of the frank communication that she had made to Mr. Airey some time before.
“I can quite understand that,” said Edmund. “Well, though Harold hasn’t shown himself to be wise—that is—”