“My lord,” said the baronet, who thought of another point on which to fall back, “there is one circumstance, one important fact, which we have both unaccountably overlooked, and which, after all, holds out a greater promise of domestic happiness between these young persons than anything we have thought of. His lordship is attached to my daughter. Now, where there is love, my lord, there is every chance and prospect of happiness in the married life.”
“Yes, if it be mutual, Sir Thomas; everything depends on that. I am glad, however, you mentioned it. There is some hope left still; but alas, alas! what is even love when opposed to selfishness and ambition? I could—I myself could——” he seemed deeply moved, and paused for some time, as if unwilling to trust himself with speech—“Yes, I am glad you mentioned it, and I thank you, Sir Thomas, I thank you. I should wish to see these two young people happy. I believe he is attached to your daughter, and I will now mention a fact which certainly proves it. The gentleman with whom he fought that unfortunate duel was forced into it by Dunroe, in consequence of his having paid some marked attentions to Miss Gourlay, when she and her mother were in Paris, some few months before Lady Gourlay's decease. I did not wish to mention this before, out of respect for your daughter; but I do so now, confidentially, of course, in consequence of the turn our conversation has taken.”
Something on the moment seemed to strike the baronet, who started, for he was unquestionably an able hand at putting scattered facts and circumstances together, and weaving a significant conclusion from them.
“That, my lord, at all events,” said the coarse-minded man, after having recovered himself, “that is gratifying.”
“What!” exclaimed Lord Cullamore, “to make your daughter the cause and subject of a duel, an intemperate brawl in a shooting gallery. The only hope I have is, that I trust she was not named.”
“But, my lord, it is, after all, a proof of his affection for her.”
His lordship smiled sarcastically, and looked at him with something like amazement, if not with contempt; but did not deign to reply.
“And now, my lord,” continued the baronet, “what is to be the result of our conference? My daughter will have all my landed property at my death, and a large marriage-portion besides, now in the funds. I am apparently the last of my race. The disappearance and death—I take it for granted, as they have never since been heard of—of my brother Sir Edward's heir, and very soon after of my own, have left me without a hope of perpetuating my name; I shall settle my estates upon Lucy.”
His lordship appeared abstracted for a few moments—“Your brother and you,” he observed, “were on terms of bitter hostility, in consequence of what you considered an unequal marriage on his part, and I candidly assure you, Sir Thomas, that, were it not for the mysterious disappearance of your own son, so soon after the disappearance of his, it would have been difficult to relieve you from dark and terrible suspicions on the subject. As it is, the people, I believe, criminate you still; but that is nothing; my opinion is, that the same enemy perpetrated the double crime. Alas! the worst and bitterest of all private feuds are the domestic. There is my own brother; in a moment of passion and jealousy he challenged me to single combat; I had sense to resist his impetuosity. He got a foreign appointment, and there has been a gulf like that of the grave between him and his, and me and mine, ever since.”
“Nothing, my lord,” replied Sir Thomas, his countenance, as he spoke, becoming black with suppressed rage, “will ever remove the impression from my mind, that the disappearance or murder of my son was not a diabolical act of retaliation committed under the suspicion that I was privy to the removal or death, as the case may be, of my brother's heir; and while I have life I will persist in charging Lady Gourlay, as I must call her so, with the crime.”