“You shall have them again,” he cried. “I can prove that every one belongs to you. That girl shall give them up, and I only hope that Sir Charles will have his eyes opened before it is too late.”
Brownie smiled as she thought how many had expressed that wish, and just at that moment Adrian appeared with Lady Dunforth.
“Have you two made it up?” the former asked, laughing, as he saw how confidential they had become.
“Yes; and I’ve promised not to interfere with my next grandson’s matrimonial inclinations in any way,” Lord Dunforth replied, with a sly glance at Brownie, as he shook the young man’s hand.
He laughed, then asked:
“Did she tell you how they made her a prisoner down at West Malling, and of her discoveries there?”
“No.”
So Adrian related that circumstance himself, and explained how, when he found her cold and desolate the next morning, with not a friend to whom to flee, and feeling it impossible to return to Lady Ruxley, he had proposed on the spot to take her away in the only way in which he could do so honorably—by making her his wife, and so they had come immediately to London and were married.
“Right, my boy, and I honor you for it. May Heaven forgive me for seeking to destroy your happiness in the way I did,” returned his lordship, heartily, while his horror and indignation against Lady Randal for her conduct regarding her younger son was boundless.
Harmony being fully restored, Lord and Lady Dunforth spent the day and dined with the young couple, and parted from them in the evening upon the best of terms, insisting that they must sojourn at least a part of every year at Castle Dunforth.