"But Mr. Torrens will take your cheque, Sir Christopher," remarked the lawyer.
"True. We can manage it in that way," said the knight. "Still the cash would have appeared more business-like on such an occasion. But it is growing late: let us push on."
"Yes—let us push on," echoed Frank, casting troubled glances around, and trembling lest the highwayman should take it into his head to return and rob the remainder of the party.
In twenty minutes they reached Torrens Cottage, the inmates of which we must pause to describe.
Mr. Torrens was a widower, and had numbered about five-and-fifty years. He was a tall, thin, dry-looking man, with a very sallow complexion, a cold grey eye, and a stern expression of countenance. After having long held a situation in a Government office, he retired with a pension; and just at the same period a relation died, leaving him a few thousand pounds. With this sum he bought a beautiful little villa, which he denominated Torrens Cottage, and the leasehold of some land at Norwood, where he set busily to work to build a row of houses to be called Torrens Terrace. He had long made architecture an amateur-study during his leisure hours; and the moment he was enabled to retire from his situation in the Ordnance Office, and became possessed of capital, he resolved to put his numerous architectural theories into practice. But, as it frequently happens in such matters, he grew embarrassed; and the works were menaced with stoppage for want of funds, when Mr. Curtis became enamoured of his eldest daughter, whom he met at the house of some of Mr. Torrens's relations in London. The bargain, already described, was soon after struck between Sir Christopher Blunt and Mr. Torrens, who did not hesitate to sacrifice his daughter's happiness to his own pecuniary interests. Unfortunately, too, for the young lady, he did not regard the contemplated union in the light of a sacrifice at all; inasmuch as he naturally looked upon Frank Curtis as Sir Christopher's heir, not dreaming that the worthy knight entertained the remotest idea of perpetrating matrimony. Mr. Torrens therefore considered that his daughter Adelais was about to form a most eligible connexion; and, although he was aware that her affections were engaged in another quarter, he acted upon the belief that parents must know best how to ensure their children's happiness.
His two daughters, Adelais and Rosamond, were both charming girls, of the respective ages of eighteen and sixteen. Their dark clustering locks, their deep hazel eyes lustrous with liquid light, and their symmetrical figures filled all beholders with admiration. Adelais was now pale, melancholy, and drooping; for she loathed the alliance that was in contemplation for her—loathed it, not only because her heart was another's, but also because the manners, conversation, and personal appearance of Frank Curtis were revolting in her estimation. Rosamond possessed a rich complexion, in which glowed all the innate feelings of her soul, animating and imparting to every feature of her beautiful face an additional charm. She was naturally the confidant of her sister, whose hard fate she deeply deplored; and many were the plans which the amiable girls had devised and discussed, with a view to overcome their father's cruel pertinacity in insisting on the sacrifice of Adelais to Frank Curtis. But each and all of those projects had either failed, or involved proceedings repugnant to their pure and artless minds. For instance, they had thought of abandoning the paternal roof, and endeavouring to seek their livelihood by needlework in some safe retirement: then Adelais would not permit Rosamond to dare the misfortunes of the world by flying from a home which she—the younger sister—had at least no personal motive to desert; and Rosamond on her side would not allow Adelais to set out alone. Again, a clandestine marriage between Adelais and her lover was often debated: the young man urged it himself;—but the daughters dreaded the father's eternal anger; and thus this project had been abandoned also. To be brief, the dreaded moment was now at hand; and the seal of misery was about to be set on the roll of the elder maiden's destinies.
And who was the lover of Adelais? A handsome, generous-hearted, honourable young man, occupying a situation in the very Government office where Mr. Torrens had himself served for many years. But, although Clarence Villiers was so far provided for, and had every prospect of rising rapidly on account of his steady habits and assiduous attention to his employment, yet he was at present only a poor clerk with ninety pounds a-year; and he had no capital. Mr. Torrens, as we have seen, required capital; and thus Frank Curtis was preferred to Clarence Villiers.
We cannot quit this description without alluding to the ardent affection which existed between the sisters. Having lost their mother in their childhood, and their father being almost constantly from home throughout the day, they were naturally thrown entirely upon each other for companionship. An illimitable confidence sprang up between them—a confidence more intimate far than even that which usually subsists between sisters; because this confidence on the part of Adelais and Rosamond extended to a mutual outpouring of their most trivial as well as of their most important thoughts, hopes, or aspirations. Thus, the reader will cease to be astonished that, when Adelais, in the anguish of her heart, had contemplated flight from the paternal roof as the only alternative save a hateful marriage, Rosamond insisted upon accompanying her. Much as they loved and revered their father, they were both prepared to sacrifice even filial affection and filial duty for each other's sake. This feeling may be looked upon as one involving a grievous fault on their side: it was not, however, the less firmly rooted in their minds,—for they were all and all to each other!
