“He has promised.”

“Pshaw!  It means nothing.”

“It is between him and me.  I asked him because I wished to save myself from being troubled.”

“As for that other man, my dear, it is quite out of the question.  From all that I hear, it is on the cards that he may be arrested and put into prison.  I am quite sure that at any rate he deserves it.  The letters which Sir Magnus gets about him are fearful.  The things that he has done,—­well, penal servitude for life would be the proper punishment.  And it will come upon him sooner or later.  I never knew a man of that kind escape.  And you now to come and tell us that you intend to be his wife!”

“I do,” said Florence, bobbing her head.

“And what your uncle says to you has no effect?”

“Not the least in the world; nor what my aunt says.  I believe that neither the one nor the other know what they are talking about.  You have been defaming a gentleman of the highest character, a Fellow of a college, a fine-hearted, noble, high-spirited man, simply because—­because—­because—­” Then she burst into tears and rushed out of the room; but she did not break down before she had looked at her aunt, and spoken to her aunt with a fierce indignation which had altogether served to silence Lady Mountjoy for the moment.

PART II.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

MR. BARRY.

“Good-bye, sir.  You ought not to be angry with me.  I am sure it will be better for us both to remain as we are.”  This was said by Miss Dorothy Grey, as a gentleman departed from her and made his way out of the front-door at the Fulham Manor-house.  Miss Grey had received an offer of marriage, and had declined it.  The offer had been made by a worthy man, he being no other than her father’s partner, Mr. Barry.

It may be remembered that, on discussing the affairs of the firm with her father, Dolly Grey had been accustomed to call this partner “the Devil.”  It was not that she had thought this partner to be specially devilish, nor was he so.  It had ever been Miss Grey’s object to have the affairs of the firm managed with an integrity which among lawyers might be called Quixotic.  Her father she had dubbed “Reason,” and herself “Conscience;” but in calling Mr. Barry “the Devil” she had not intended to signify any defalcation from honesty more than ordinary in lawyers’ offices.  She did, in fact, like Mr. Barry.  He would occasionally come out and dine with her father.  He was courteous and respectful, and performed his duties with diligence.  He spent nobody’s money but his own, and not all of that; nor did he look upon the world as a place to which men were sent that they might play.  He was nearly forty years old, was clean, a little bald, and healthy in all his ways.  There was nothing of a devil about him, except that his conscience was not peculiarly attentive to abstract honesty and abstract virtue.  There must, according to him, be always a little “give and take” in the world; but in the pursuit of his profession he gave a great deal more than he took.  He thought himself to be an honest practitioner, and yet in all domestic professional conferences with her father Mr. Barry had always been Miss Grey’s “Devil.”