“Yes,” cried Charley bitterly; “and I was so mean, so base and contemptible, as to let you believe that I loved Laura Bray, and ask her here, as if—Heaven forgive me!—I blushed for my love for a woman who—There, I can’t talk of it—I can’t enter into it. Father, why did you stop the even tenor of my life? But no!” he cried, as he recalled his first meeting, “it was not your doing. I am half mad with disappointment, and know not what I say. A few weeks ago, and I could mock at the word Love, while now it is as though something was robbing me of sleep by night, rest by day, and my old zest for life. Father, I tell you I love—and love almost madly—a woman who rejects my suit, who turns from me, while every effort to see her now seems to be frustrated.”
“But, Charley,” cried the old man, his hands trembling with agitation, as, following his son about the room, he sought to drive away the suspicion that was beginning to enlighten him, “who is this lady? You are too timid—too diffident. Surely no one we know would refuse you. Pooh! my dear boy, you have taken the distemper almost too strongly,” he continued, with a forced laugh. “But who is it?—one of the Miss Lingons?”
Charley turned angrily upon him, as if suspecting him of banter, but only to see truth and earnestness in the old man’s troubled countenance.
“Father,” he said calmly, “I love Ella Bedford.”
“Who? Miss Bedford?” cried the old man excitedly. “You are joking with me, my boy,” he said huskily; “and it is ungenerous, Charley. You know how I have set my mind on this—on your marriage—our pedigree, my son, our ancient lineage. Think, Charley, of your position.”
“I do, father,” said Charley sternly.
“But, my boy,” exclaimed Sir Philip angrily, “it is madness! You, soon to be a baronet, with one of the finest rent-rolls in the county, and to stoop to a governess!”
“To a lady, father!” cried Charley fiercely now, as he stood facing Sir Philip. “You told me you wished me to marry. Can I govern my own heart? I told you once that I did not believe so good and pure a woman as my dear mother lived on this earth. I retract it now, and own, father, that it was said in the blind ignorance of my foolish conceit; for I know now that there are women walking this lower earth of ours whom I cruelly calumniated, for they might be taken as the types of the angels above. Father, I love one of these women with a strong man’s first fierce love—with the passion long chained, now almost at your bidding let loose, and before heaven I swear that—”
“For heaven’s sake be silent, Charley, my dear child!” cried Sir Philip almost frantically, as he laid his hand on his son’s lips.
Then with a groan he shrank away, staggered to his chair, and buried his face in his hands, while with face working, brow flushed, and the veins standing out in his forehead, Charley stood struggling between the two loves, when he turned; for the door opened, and the servant handed to him a letter that made his face flush a deeper hue.