I could only gather her to my heart, with a look towards him.
His was the hardest task after all! He and I knew that now. He left us alone; and my Lilian and I tried to find strength for what was to come, as only such strength can be found. But Lilian would never be the same again. Her love to her father had been wounded unto death; and I saw that it was her mother—her cruelly wronged mother—who had all her sympathy now. I shall never forget the agony expressed in the whispered words, 'Mother! mother!'
We were not left very long alone. Robert Wentworth could barely have had time to tell the story, when Arthur Trafford came striding in by the open window.
'Good heavens, Lilian! what is this?' he ejaculated impetuously; adding, before she could reply: 'Wentworth tells me that—that you take this absurd affair seriously!'
'Seriously, Arthur?' she repeated, turning her eyes wonderingly upon him.
'I mean: he says you mean to act as though that ridiculous paper were genuine; but surely that is too absurd!'
'Is it not genuine, then?' she eagerly asked, her face for a moment brightening with hope, as she turned towards me: 'Is there any doubt about it, Mary?'
'I am sorry to say that I think there is not, Lilian,' I replied; feeling that it was less cruel to kill her hope at once, than indulge it. 'Mr Wentworth said he had taken Counsel's advice, you know.'
'Oh, I suppose it may be genuine enough for the kind of thing!' he said, with an effort to speak lightly. 'But of course, none in their senses would for a moment dream of acting upon it. At the very best, it would be only a very doubtful marriage, arranged, I daresay, to satisfy a not too scrupulous girl's vanity. The thing is done every day; and I am sure, on reflection, you will not be so Quixotic as to'——