There was something in this which was detestable to Florence,—­an unfairness, a dishonesty in putting off upon his trouble that absence of love which she had at last been driven by his vows to confess.  She knew that it was not because of his present trouble, which she understood to be terrible, but which she could not in truth comprehend.  He had blurted it all out roughly,—­the story as told by his father of his mother’s dishonor, of his own insignificance in the world, of the threatened loss of the property, of the heaviness of his debts,—­and added his conviction that his father had invented it all, and was, in fact, a thorough rascal.  The full story of his debts he kept back, not with any predetermined falseness, but because it is so difficult for a man to own that he has absolutely ruined himself by his own folly.  It was not wonderful that the girl should not have understood such a story as had then been told her.  Why was he defending his mother?  Why was he accusing his father?  The accusations against her uncle, whom she did know, were more fearful to her than these mysterious charges against her aunt, whom she did not know, from which her son defended her.  But then he had spoken passionately of his own love, and she had understood that.  He had besought her to confess that she loved him, and then she had at once become stubborn.  There was something in the word “confess” which grated against her feelings.  It seemed to imply a conviction on his part that she did love him.  She had never told him so, and was now sure that it was not so.  When he had pressed her she could only weep.  But in her weeping she never for a moment yielded.  She never uttered a single word on which he could be enabled to build a hope.  Then he had become blacker and still blacker, fiercer and still fiercer, more and more earnest in his purpose, till at last he asked her whom it was that she loved—­as she could not love him.  He knew well whom it was that he suspected;—­and she knew also.  But he had no right to demand any statement from her on that head.  She did not think that the man loved her; nor did she know what to say or to think of her own feelings.  Were he, the other man, to come to her, she would only bid him go away; but why she should so bid him she had hardly known.  But now this dark frowning captain, with his big mustache and his military look, and his general aspect of invincible power, threatened the other man.

“He came to Tretton as my friend,” he said, “and by Heaven if he stands in my way, if he dare to cross between you and me, he shall answer it with his life!”

The name had not been mentioned; but this had been very terrible to Florence, and she could only weep.

He went away, refusing to stay to dinner, but said that on the following afternoon he would again return.  In the street of the town he met one of his creditors, who had discovered his journey to Cheltenham, and had followed him.

“Oh, Captain Mountjoy, what is all dis that they are talking about in London?”