Oswald had invited his friend to Millbank; and Coningsby, having learnt the baselessness of the report that had driven him from Paris, gladly accepted.  Coningsby Castle was near to Hellingsley; and this estate Mr. Millbank had purchased, outbidding Lord Monmouth.  Bitter enmity existed between the great marquess and the famous manufacturer—­an old, implacable hatred.  Mr. Millbank now resided at Hellingsley; and Coningsby left the castle rejoicing to meet his old Eton friend again, and still more the beautiful sister of his old friend.

Mr. Millbank was from home when he arrived; and Coningsby and Miss Millbank walked in the park, and rested by the margin of a stream.  Assuredly a maiden and a youth more beautiful and engaging had seldom met in a scene more fresh and fair.

Coningsby gazed on the countenance of his companion.  She turned her head, and met his glance.

“Edith,” he said, in a tone of tremulous passion, “let me call you Edith!  Yes,” he continued, gently taking her hand; “let me call you my Edith!  I love you!”

She did not withdraw her hand; but turned away a face flushed as the impending twilight.

The lovers returned late for dinner to find that Mr. Millbank was at home.

Next morning, in Mr. Millbank’s room, Coningsby learnt that the marriage he looked forward to with all the ardour of youth was quite impossible.

“The sacrifices and the misery of such a marriage are certain and inseparable,” said Mr. Millbank gravely, but without harshness.  “You are the grandson of Lord Monmouth; at present enjoying his favour, but dependent on his bounty.  You may be the heir of his wealth to-morrow and to-morrow you may be the object of his hatred and persecution.  Your grandfather and myself are foes—­to the death.  It is idle to mince phrases.  I do not vindicate our mutual feelings; I may regret that they have ever arisen, especially at this exigency.  Lord Monmouth would crush me, had he the power, like a worm; and I have curbed his proud fortunes often.  These feelings of hatred may be deplored, but they do not exist; and now you are to go to this man, and ask his sanction to marry my daughter!”

“I would appease these hatreds,” retorted Coningsby, “the origin of which I know not.  I would appeal to my grandfather.  I would show him Edith.”

“He has looked upon as fair even as Edith,” said Mr. Millbank.  “And did that melt his heart?  My daughter and yourself can meet no more.”

In vain Coningsby pleaded his suit.  It was not till Mr. Millbank told that he, too, had suffered—­that he had loved Coningsby’s own mother, and that she gave her heart to another, to die afterwards solitary and forsaken, tortured by Lord Monmouth—­that Coningsby was silent.  It was his mother’s portrait he had looked upon that night at Millbank; and he understood the cause of the hatred.

He wrung Mr. Millbank’s hand, and left Hellingsley in despair.  But Oswald overtook him in the park; and, leaning on his friend’s arm, Coningsby poured forth a hurried, impassioned, and incoherent strain—­ all that had occurred, all that he had dreamed, his baffled bliss, his actual despair, his hopeless outlook.