"I hope and believe that if a peaceful home could be secured for his declining years, he would live the rest of his life like a gentleman and a Christian; and that, the bitter struggle for existence being ended, he would be sorry for the past. I doubt if the sense of shame ever deserted him when he was living that wretched wandering life, leaving debts and difficulties behind him everywhere—always harassed and hunted by creditors, who had good cause to be angry. Yes, Gustave, I do believe that if it should please Providence to give my father a peaceful home at last, he will be thankful for God's mercy, and will repent the sins of life. And now I have told you the kind of heritage I can bring my husband."
"My dear love, I will accept the heritage, for the sake of her who brings it. I never meant to be less than a son to your father; and if he is not the best of fathers, as regards the past, we will try to make him a decent kind of father as regards the future. I have long understood that Captain Paget is something—ever so little—of an adventurer. It was the pursuit of fortune that brought him to me; and without knowing it, he brought me my fortune in the shape of his daughter."
Diana blushed as she remembered that Captain Paget had not been so innocent of any design in this matter as the Frenchman imagined.
"And you will receive even papa for my sake?" asked Diana.
"With all my heart."
"Ah, you are indeed a generous lover!"
"A lover who is not generous is—bah! there is nothing in creation so mean as the wretch whom love does not render generous. When one sees the woman whom Fate intends for one's wife, is one to stop to inquire the character of her father, her mother, her sister, her cousin?—for there is no stopping when you begin that. A man who loves makes no inquiries. If he finds his jewel in the gutter, he picks it out of the mud and carries it away in his bosom, too proud of his treasure to remember where he found it; always provided that the jewel is no counterfeit, but the real gem, fit for a king's crown. And my diamond is of the purest water. By-and-by we will try to drain the gutter—that is to say, we will try to pay those small debts of which you speak, to lodging-house keepers, and tradesmen who have trusted your father."
"You would pay papa's debts!" cried Diana in amazement.
"But why not? All these little debts, the thought of which is so bitter to you, might be discharged for two or three thousand pounds. Your father tells me I am to be very rich by-and-by."
"My father tells you! Ah, then, you have allowed him to involve you in some kind of speculation!"