“My boy, your happiness is of the greatest importance to me, and has always been my first consideration. I know what it is to love deeply, and the anguish which follows the loss of a loved one”—his voice quivered painfully. “But,” he added, “it is better to give up an unworthy love than to marry beneath you, and then repent of it when it is too late.”
“Sir, the lady is not unworthy, and I shall never repent making her my wife,” Adrian said, indignantly; then continued, speaking rapidly: “I told you that she descended from a highly respectable family. They were English, too, and removed to America many years ago. They were very wealthy at that time, but a series of misfortunes deprived them of this. I learned this from my friend, Gordon, whom, you remember, I met two years ago in Germany. He vouched for her respectability, and told me he had seen the ‘family tree,’ and that they traced back their ancestry to the Scottish nobility.”
“But it must be very remote. Besides, she was born and reared in America, and has not a friend living, as you say, to prove her respectability, and all this would be very disagreeable to establish.”
“The fact that I have chosen her for my wife would be sufficient to establish her respectability without any questioning,” replied Adrian, proudly.
“But I want you to have an English wife, Adrian—one who will fill her position proudly and creditably.”
“I am as eager for that, my lord, as you can possibly be,” said the young man, with a quiet smile, as he thought how perfectly Brownie would reign in those grand old halls.
“How came she to be in England if she was so reduced in circumstances?”
“She came over as governess with a family, in the same steamer with myself.”
“How does it happen that they did not retain her—that she left them to be companion to a woman like Lady Ruxley?” demanded his lordship, his face beginning to grow stern and set.
Adrian colored vividly. He knew it did not sound well, but he was truth itself, and replied: