"Gertrude, Gertrude," exclaimed her husband, "is this request a fit message from a mother to her child?"
"I had always a dislike to scenes," observed her ladyship, "therefore, I shall not reproach Miss Wetheral with her deceptive conduct in allowing attentions from a quarter which I never countenanced, and after my express commands to avoid them. I ever deprecated scenes before Lady Kerrison—but her violent spirit scorned restraint. She gave me deep pain; and Lady Ennismore's banishment has caused me pain—but this stroke lies far deeper in my heart!"
Lady Wetheral became all nerve: her whole person was in a nervous trembling. Her husband failed in every effort to tranquillize her spirit.
"You may dilate upon the supreme excellence of your favourite Spottiswoode, my love, and you may assure me your daughter is an enviable and a happy being; but I know she has cast aside a ducal coronet, to wed the poor baronet of Alverton! I will see her no more. I will never see her again."
"My dear Gertrude, be tranquil, and be rational." Sir John Wetheral never could be persuaded to lose his temper.
"I am perfectly tranquil and calm, Sir John. I am perfectly tranquil, and very rational in my commands, when I persist in banishing my unnatural child from my sight. Miss Wetheral has taken her measures, and I assert mine. We do not meet again."
"This is wrong, a wicked wrong, towards an innocent child, Gertrude!"
"She is very innocent," retorted Lady Wetheral, with bitterness. "Her innocence has caused her to oppose my wishes, and to dare that which her sisters never presumed to do. They never contravened my views, nor thwarted my wishes in their establishment, and they married well!"
"Was it well with Clara?" demanded her husband, with earnestness of manner as startling as it was novel—"was it well with Clara? Did she not quit her home clandestinely, to become the wife of Kerrison?—miserable in her short career, and sudden in her death, was she happy? Is Clara to be held forth as an evidence of maternal care, in such a momentous concern?"
"Forbear, Sir John, forbear!" cried his lady.