“Some peculiar cases!  On the contrary, the cases you speak of are the general rule, my girl—­the general rule—­and rational obedience to a parent the exception.  Where is there a case—­and there are millions—­where a parent’s wish and will are set at naught and scorned, in which the same argument is not used?  I do not relish these discussions, however.  What I wish to impress upon you is this—­you must see this fellow no more.”

Lucy’s temples were immediately in a blaze.  “Are you aware, papa, that you insult and degrade your daughter, by applying such a term to him?  If you will not spare him, sir, spare me; for I assure you that I feel anything said against him with ten times more emotion than if it were uttered against myself.”

“Well, well; he’s a fine fellow, a gentleman, a lord; but, be he what he may, you must see him no more.”

“It is not my intention, papa, to see him again.”

“You must not write to him.”

“It will not be necessary.”

“But you must not.”

“Well, then, I shall not.”

“Nor receive kis letters.”

“Nor receive his letters, knowing them to be his.”

“You promise all this?”

“I do, sir, faithfully.  I hope you are now satisfied, papa?”

“I am, Lucy—­I am.  You are not so bad a girl as I sus—­no, you are a very good girl; and when I see you the Countess of Cullamore, I shall not have a single wish un-gratified.”

Lucy, indeed, poor girl, was well and vigilantly guarded.  No communication, whether written or otherwise, was permitted to reach her; nor, if she had been lodged in the deepest dungeon in Europe, and secured by the strongest bolts that ever enclosed a prisoner, could she have been more rigidly excluded from all intercourse, her father’s and her maid’s only excepted.

Her lover, on receiving the documents so often alluded to from old Corbet, immediately transmitted to her a letter of hope and encouragement, in which he stated that the object he had alluded to was achieved, and that he would take care to place such documents before her father, as must cause even him to forbid the bans.  This letter, however, never reached her.  Neither did a similar communication from Mrs. Mainwaring, who after three successive attempts to see either her or her father, was forced at last to give up all hope of preventing the marriage.  She seemed, indeed, to have been fated.

In the meantime, the stranger, having, as he imagined, relieved Lucy’s mind from her dreaded union with Dunroe, and left the further and more complete disclosure of that young nobleman’s position to Mrs. Mainwaring, provided himself with competent legal authority to claim the person of unfortunate Fenton.  It is unnecessary to describe his journey to the asylum in which the wretched young man was placed; it is enough to say that he arrived there at nine o’clock in the morning, accompanied by old Corbet and three officers of justice, who remained in the carriage; and on asking to see the proprietor, was shown into a parlor, where he found that worthy gentleman reading a newspaper.