Sir James walked away, possessed by a savage desire to do some damage to the cathedral in pith, as he passed it on his way to the door; or to shake his fist in the faces of Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury, whose portraits adorned the staircase.  The type of Catholic woman which he most admired rose in his mind; compassionate, tender, infinitely soft and loving—­like the saints; save where “the faith” was concerned—­like the saints, again.  This Protestant rigidity and self-sufficiency were the deuce!

But he would go down to Beechcote, and he and Oliver between them would see that child through.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, Ferrier and Marsham were in anxious conclave.  Ferrier counselled delay.  “Let the thing sleep a little.  Don’t announce the engagement.  You and Miss Mallory will, of course, understand each other.  You will correspond.  But don’t hurry it.  So much consideration, at least, is due to your mother’s strong feeling.”

Marsham assented, but despondently.

“You know my mother; time will make no difference.”

“I’m not so sure—­I’m not so sure,” said Ferrier, cheerfully.  “Did your mother say anything about—­finances?”

Marsham gave a gloomy smile.

“I shall be a pauper, of course—­that was made quite plain to me.”

“No, no!—­that must be prevented!” said Ferrier, with energy.

Marsham was not quick to reply.  His manner as he stood with his back to the fire, his distinguished head well thrown back on his straight, lean shoulders, was the manner of a proud man suffering humiliation.  He was thirty-six, and rapidly becoming a politician of importance.  Yet here he was—­poor and impotent, in the midst of great wealth, wholly dependent, by his father’s monstrous will, on his mother’s caprice—­liable to be thwarted and commanded, as though he were a boy of fifteen.  Up till now Lady Lucy’s yoke had been tolerable; to-day it galled beyond endurance.

Moreover, there was something peculiarly irritating at the moment in Ferrier’s intervention.  There had been increased Parliamentary friction of late between the two men, in spite of the intimacy of their personal relations.  To be forced to owe fortune, career, and the permission to marry as he pleased to Ferrier’s influence with his mother was, at this juncture, a bitter pill for Oliver Marsham.

Ferrier understood him perfectly, and he had never displayed more kindness or more tact than in the conversation which passed between them.  Marsham finally agreed that Diana must be frankly informed of his mother’s state of mind, and that a waiting policy offered the only hope.  On this they were retiring to the front drawing-room when Lady Lucy opened the communicating door.

“A letter for you, Oliver.”

He took it, and turned it over.  The handwriting was unknown to him.

“Who brought this?” he asked of the butler standing behind his mother.