“If you marry Robert Somerford he may be Earl of Glendare. If you wait till he is Earl of Glendare, you may never be Countess of Glendare. And indeed I shall not desire to see you raised to the peerage. I do not think greatness would sit easily upon your shoulders. I believe you would be far happier married to some honest, honourable man in our own rank of life than you could be amongst the nobility. But there is no honest, honourable young man in our own rank of life residing near here whose cause I wish to plead, so you will be quite safe in coming to me. Will you think the matter over and come?”
Which letter Grace, after having thought the matter over, answered in these words:—
“I will go to you. Amongst all the people I know, there is no one I trust so fully, I believe in so implicitly as I do in you. I will let Bayview furnished. I will set my affairs in order, and leave the dear old place which has grown hateful to me—temporarily only, I hope—for I should like, when I have advanced sufficiently in age, to wear caps, and set the world’s opinions at defiance, to return to Ireland, and spend my declining years and my income amongst mine ‘ain folk.’”
“Were I a stronger-minded woman, I suppose I should be able to conquer my grief and defy public criticism by starting on what you would call a career of philanthropy; but sorrow and the world, this little world of Kingslough, are, I confess, too much for me. As you say, I believe I should marry out of mere weariness of spirit.”
“My pensioners I shall leave to Mrs. Larkin, who will rejoice in seeing the poor crowd round her door like robins in the winter.
“If anything were capable of making me laugh now, I should laugh at your idea of there being the slightest tender feeling between me and Mr. Hanlon. It is because by some nameless instinct I comprehend he never could by any chance care for me that I have seen more of him since my irreparable loss than has been perhaps, situated as I am, quite wise. I do not mean that he has called here often, or that I have chanced to meet him more than two or three times in my solitary walks by the seashore; but still you know what all small places are, what this small place is especially.
“Kingslough has talked, is talking—Kingslough says my head is turned, and that I am bent on flinging myself and my money away on a man who, some say—you remember Kingslough was always remarkable for its vehemence of expression, ‘should be drummed out of the town’—and others think worthy of being—do not faint at the phrase, it is not mine—‘strung up.’
“I have told you that I am positive Mr. Hanlon has no intention, even for the weal of the nation, of ever asking me to marry him; and yet I have an uneasy conviction he has some purpose to serve in cultivating better relations between us, which purpose I cannot at present divine. Moreover, I fear he has not given so direct a denial to those rumours which have bracketed his name and mine in such an undesirable connection as I think, were I a man, I should have done under similar circumstances. Kingslough says positively I have lost my heart and my senses—of the state of both you will be able to judge when we meet.
“Mr. Robert Somerford has at length given me the opportunity of refusing the honour of allying myself to the house of Glendare. I am glad of this, for I should scarcely have liked to leave Bayview whilst a chance remained of his doing so. He is handsomer than ever—years only improve his appearance; but were he beautiful as Adonis he could never be my hero more.
“He was first sentimental and sympathetic, next pressing in his entreaties, and sceptical as to the genuineness of my ‘No.’ Lastly he was insolent and made as much of himself and his position as though he had been nursed in the lap of royalty, and lived all his life on terms of equality with kings and queens. Familiarity may in my case have bred contempt, but I certainly never in the days when I admired him most considered he was so much my superior as appears is the case.