If Lord Elmwood was not desirous Miss Milner should conclude her visit and return to his protection, it was partly from the multiplicity of affairs in which he was at this time engaged, and partly from having Mr. Sandford now entirely placed with him as his chaplain; for he dreaded, that living in the same house, their natural antipathy might be increased even to aversion. Upon this account, he once thought of advising Mr. Sandford to take up his abode elsewhere; but the great pleasure he took in his society, joined to the bitter mortification he knew such a proposal would be to his friend, would not suffer him to make it.
Miss Milner all this time was not thinking upon those she hated, but on those she loved. Sandford never came into her thoughts, while the image of Lord Elmwood never left them. One morning, as she sat talking to Lady Luneham on various subjects, but thinking alone on him, Sir Harry Luneham, with another gentleman, a Mr. Fleetmond, came in, and the conversation turned upon the improbability, during the present Lord Elmwood’s youth, that he should ever inherit the title and estate which had now fallen to him—and, said Mr. Fleetmond, “Independent of rank and fortune, it must be matter of infinite joy to Mr. Dorriforth.”
“No,” answered Sir Harry, “independent of rank and fortune, it must be a motive of concern to him; for he must now regret, beyond measure, his folly in taking priest’s orders, thus depriving himself of the hopes of an heir, so that his title, at his death, will be lost.”
“By no means,” replied Mr. Fleetmond; “he may yet have an heir, for he will certainly marry.”
“Marry!” cried the Baronet.
“Yes,” answered the other, “it was that I meant by the joy it might probably give him, beyond the possession of his estate and title.”
“How he married?” said Lady Luneham, “Has he not taken a vow never to marry?”
“Yes,” answered Mr. Fleetmond, “but there are no religious vows, from which the sovereign Pontiff at Rome cannot grant a dispensation, as those commandments which are made by the church, the church has always the power to revoke; and when it is for the general good of religion, his Holiness thinks it incumbent on him, to publish his bull, and remit all penalties for their non-observance; and certainly it is for the honour of the Catholics, that this Earldom should continue in a Catholic family. In short, I’ll venture to lay a wager, my Lord Elmwood is married within a year.”
Miss Milner, who listened with attention, feared she was in a dream, or deceived by the pretended knowledge of Mr. Fleetmond, who might know nothing—yet all that he had said was very probable; and he was himself a Roman Catholic, so that he must be well informed on the subject upon which he spoke. If she had heard the direst news that ever sounded in the ears of the most susceptible of mortals, the agitation of her mind and person could not have been stronger—she felt, while every word was speaking, a chill through all her veins—a pleasure too exquisite, not to bear along with it the sensation of exquisite pain; of which she was so sensible, that for a few moments it made her wish that she had not heard the intelligence; though, very soon after, she would not but have heard it for the world.
As soon as she had recovered from her first astonishment and joy, she wrote to Miss Woodley an exact account of what she had heard, and received this answer: