"Mother," said Eleanor, firmly, to Mrs. Mowbray, "go with me to Lady Rookwood's chamber."
"Wherefore?" demanded Mrs. Mowbray.
"Question me not, dear mother, or let me go alone."
"Daughter, I guess your meaning," said Mrs. Mowbray, sternly. "You would relinquish your claims in favor of Lady Rookwood. Is it not so?"
"Since you oblige me to answer you, mother," said Eleanor, crimsoning, "I must admit that you have guessed my meaning. To Lady Rookwood, as to yourself, I would be a daughter as far as is consistent with my duty," added she, blushing still more deeply, "but my first consideration shall be my husband. And if Lady Rookwood can be content——But pray question me not further—accompany me to her chamber."
"Eleanor," interposed Ranulph, "dearest Eleanor, the sacrifice you would make is unnecessary—uncalled for. You do not know my mother. She would not, I grieve to say, appreciate the generosity of your motives. She would not give you credit for your feelings. She would only resent your visit as an intrusion."
"My daughter comprehends you, sir," said Mrs. Mowbray, haughtily. "I will take care that, in her own house, Miss Mowbray shall remain free from insult."
"Mother, dear mother," said Eleanor, "do not wilfully misunderstand him."
"You can be little aware, madam," said Ranulph, calmly, yet sadly, "how much I have recently endured—how much of parental anger—how much of parental malediction I have incurred, to save you and your daughter from the indignity you apprehend. As I before said, you do not know my mother; nor could it enter into any well-regulated imagination to conceive the extremities to which the violence of her passion will, when her schemes are thwarted, hurry her. The terms upon which you met together will not escape your recollection; nor shall I need to recall to your mind her haughtiness, her coldness. That coldness has since ripened into distrust; and the match which she was at first all anxiety to promote, she would now utterly set aside, were it in her power to do so. Whence this alteration in her views has arisen, I have no means of ascertaining; it is not my mother's custom to give a reason for her actions, or her wishes: it is all-sufficient to express them. I have perceived, as the time has drawn nigh for the fulfilment of my dearest hopes, that her unwillingness has increased; until to-day, what had hitherto been confined to hints, has been openly expressed, and absolute objections raised. Such, however, is the peculiarity of her temper, that I trusted, even at the eleventh hour, I should be able to work a change. Alas! our last meeting was decisive. She commanded me to break off the match. At once, and peremptorily, I refused. Pardon me, madam, pardon me, dearest Eleanor, if I thus enter into particulars; it is absolutely necessary I should be explicit. Enraged at my opposition to her wishes, her fury became ungovernable. With appalling imprecations upon the memory of my poor father, and upon your father, madam, whose chief offence in her eyes was, it seems, the disposition of his property to Eleanor, she bade me be gone, and take her curses as my wedding portion. Beneath this roof—beneath her roof, she added—no marriage of mine should e'er take place. I might go hence, or might stay, as I thought fitting; but you and your daughter, whom she characterized as intruders, should not remain another hour within her house. To this wild raving I answered, with as much composure as I could command, that she entirely mistook her own position, and that, so far from the odium of intrusion resting with you, if applicable to any one, the term must necessarily affix itself on those who, through ignorance, had for years unjustly deprived the rightful owners of this place of their inheritance. Upon this her wrath was boundless. She disowned me as her son; disclaimed all maternal regard, and heaped upon my head a frightful malediction, at the recollection of which I still tremble. I will spare you further details of this dreadful scene. To me it is most distressing; for, however firmly resolved I may be to pursue a line of conduct which every sound principle within me dictates as the correct one, yet I cannot be insensible to the awful responsibility I shall incur in bringing down a mother's curse upon my head, nor to the jeopardy in which her own excessive violence may place her."
Mrs. Mowbray listened to Ranulph's explanation in haughty displeasure; Eleanor with throbbing, tearful interest; Dr. Small, with mixed feelings of anger and astonishment.