"Noble son of the sainted Therese!" cried Sir Robert; "I do not deserve thee!"
"How shall I merit your care of my honor, of my dearest feelings?" exclaimed Pembroke, grasping the hand of his brother. "I can do nothing, dearest Thaddeus; I am a bankrupt in the means of evincing what is passing in my soul. My mother's chaste spirit thanks you from my lips. Yet I will not abuse your generosity. Though I retain the name of Somerset, it shall only be the name; the inheritance entailed on my father's eldest son belongs to you."
Whilst Thaddeus embraced his brother again, he calmly and affectionately replied that he would rather encounter all the probable evils from which his father's benevolence had saved him, than rob his brother of any part of that inheritance, "which," he earnestly added, "I sincerely believe, according to the Providence of Heaven, is your just due."
Sir Robert, with abhorrence of himself and admiration of his sons, attempted to stop this noble contention by proposing that it should be determined by an equal division of the family property.
"Not so, my father," returned Thaddeus, steadfastly, but with reverence; "I can never admit that the title of Somerset should sacrifice one jot of its inherited accustomed munificence by making any such alienation of its means."
And then the ingenuous son of Therese Sobieski proceeded, in the same modest but firm tone, to remind his father that "though the laws of the national church wherein he had married her would have given their son every right over any inheritance from either parent which belonged to Poland, yet as no opportunity had subsequently occurred for repeating the sacred ceremony by the laws of his father's church, her son could make no legal claim whatever on a rood of the Somerset lands in England."
Sir Robert, with unspeakable emotion, clasped the hand of his first- born when he had made, and with such tender delicacy, this conclusive remark, and which, indeed, had never presented itself to his often distractedly apprehensive mind, either before or after the death of Pembroke's mother; even had it done so, it would not have afforded any quiet to his soul from the internal worm gnawing there. His act had been guilt towards Therese Sobieski and her confiding innocence. And it was not the discovery of any omitted legislative ordinance that could have satisfied the accusing conscience in his own bosom, hourly calling out against him. But the heaven-consecrated son of that profaned marriage had found the reconciling point—had poured in the healing balm; and the spirit of his father was now at peace.
In cordial harmony, therefore, with this generous opinion, so opportunely expressed by the sincere judgment of the last of the house of Sobieski, when so united to that of Somerset, and with a corresponding simplicity of purpose, interwoven by the sweet reciprocity of mutual confidence, the remainder of the evening passed pleasantly between the happy father and his no less happy sons.
Sir Robert dispatched a letter next day to his sister, to invite her and his beloved Mary to join the home party at Deerhurst without delay. Pembroke rejoiced in this prospective relief to the minds of his aunt and cousin, being well aware that he had left them in a state of intense anxiety, not only on account of the baronet's strange conduct,—which had not been explicable in any way to their alarmed observations,—but on account of himself, whose mind had appeared from the time of his father's incensed departure in a state verging on derangement. On the instant of his return from the deserted hotel, while passing Mary, whom he accidently met in his bewildered way to Sir Robert's room, he had exclaimed to her, "I have not seen Sobieski! he is gone! and your message is not delivered." From the time of that harrowing intimation, he had constantly avoided even the sight of his cousin or his aunt. Yet before he quitted the Castle to obey his father's new commands, he had summoned courage to enter Mary's boudoir, where she sat alone. Not trusting himself to speak, he put the letter which Thaddeus had written to her into her hand, and disappeared, not daring to await her opening what he knew to be a last farewell.
He had guessed aright; for from the moment in which her trembling hand had broken the seal and she had read it to the end, bathed in her tears, it lay on her mourning heart, whether she waked or slept, till her silent grief was roused to share her thoughts with a personal exertion, welcome to that despondent heart. It was Sir Robert's invitation for her own and her aunt's immediate removal to their always favorite Deerhurst! because far from the gay world, and ever devoted to quite domestic enjoyments.