“But oh! good gracious me,” exclaimed Miss Mason, “how can you be so unkind as to talk about it like that, as if it didn’t matter a bit whether the will is forged or not. If it isn’t forged, Launcelot isn’t bad; and if he isn’t bad, of course I may marry him, and the wedding things won’t be all wasted. I knew that something would happen to make everything come right.”
“Laura,” cried Mr. Monckton, “you must not talk like this. Do you know that you are no longer a child, and that you are dealing with the most solemn business in a woman’s life? I do not know whether the will by which Launcelot Darrell inherits the Woodlands property is genuine or not; I certainly have reason to think that it is genuine, but I will not take upon myself to speak positively. But however that may be, I know that he is not a good man, and you shall never marry him with my consent.”
The young lady began to cry, and murmured something to the effect that it was cruel to use her so when she was ill, and had been taking oceans of lime-draughts; but Mr. Monckton was inflexible.
“If you were to have a dozen illnesses such as this,” he said, “they would not turn me from my purpose or alter my determination. When I voluntarily took upon myself the custody of your life, Laura, I undertook that charge with the intention of accomplishing it as a sacred duty. I have faltered in that duty; for I suffered you to betroth yourself to a man whom I have never been able to trust. But it is not yet too late to repair that error. You shall never marry Launcelot Darrell.”
“Why not? If he didn’t commit a forgery, as Eleanor says he did, why shouldn’t I marry him?”
“Because he has never truly loved you, Laura. You admit that he was Eleanor’s suitor before he was yours? You admit that, do you not?”
Miss Mason pouted, and sobbed, and choked once or twice before she answered. Gilbert Monckton waited impatiently for her reply. He was about as fit to play the Mentor as the young lady whom he had taken upon himself to lecture. He was blinded and maddened by passionate regret, cruel disappointment, wounded pride, every feeling which is most calculated to paralyze a man’s reasoning power, and transform a Solomon into a fool.
“Yes,” Laura gasped at last; “He did propose to Eleanor first, certainly. But then she led him on.”
“She led him on!” cried Mr. Monckton. “How?”
Laura looked at him with a perplexed expression of countenance, before she replied to this eager question.