“Forgive you, papa? I do—I do, a thousand times; but I have nothing to forgive. Do I not know that all your plans and purposes were for my advancement, and, as you hoped, for my happiness?”
“Lucy,” said he, “disgrace is hard to bear; but still I would have borne it had my great object in that advancement been accomplished; but now, here is the disgrace, yet the object lost forever. Then, my son, Lucy—I am his murderer; but I knew it not; and even that I could get over; but you, that is what prostrates me. And, again, to have been the puppet of that old villain! Even that, however, I could bear; yes, everything but you!—that was the great cast on which my whole heart was set; but now, mocked, despised, detested, baffled, detected, defeated. However, it is all over, like a troubled dream. Dry your eyes now,” he added, “and see Dunroe.”
“Would you wish to see Dean Palmer, papa?”
“No, no, Lucy; not at all; he could do me no good. Go, now, and see Dunroe, and do not let me be disturbed for an hour or two. You know I have seen the body of my son to-day, and I wish I had not.”
“I am sorry you did, papa; it has depressed you very much.”
“Go, Lucy, go. In a couple of hours I—Go, dear; don't keep his lordship waiting.”
Poor Lucy's heart was in a tumult of delight as she went down stairs. In the whole course of her life she had never witnessed in her father anything of tender emotion until then, and the tear that fell upon her hand she knew was the only one she ever saw him shed.
“I have hope for papa yet,” she said to herself, as she was about to enter the drawing-room; “I never thought I loved him so much as I find I do now.”
On advancing into the room, for an instant's time she seemed confused; her confusion, however, soon became surprise—amazement, when Dean Palmer, taking our friend the stranger by the hand, led him toward her, exclaiming, “Allow me, Miss Gourlay, to have the honor of presenting to you Lord Dunroe.”
“Lord Dunroe!” exclaimed Lucy, in her turn, looking aghast with astonishment. “What is this, sir—what means this, gentlemen? This house, pray recollect, is a house of death and of suffering.”