not the happiness of this or that individual which should be considered.  There is a propriety in things;—­and only by an adherence to that propriety on the part of individuals can the general welfare be maintained.  A King in his country, or the heir or the possible heir to the throne, is debarred from what might possibly be a happy marriage by regard to the good of his subjects.  To the Duke’s thinking the maintenance of the aristocracy of the country was second only in importance to the maintenance of the Crown.  How should the aristocracy be maintained if its wealth were allowed to fall into the hands of an adventurer!

Such were the opinions with regard to his own order of one who was as truly Liberal in his ideas as any man in England, and who had argued out these ideas to their consequences.  As by the spread of education and increase of the general well-being every proletaire was brought nearer to a Duke, so by such action would the Duke be brought nearer to a proletaire.  Such drawing-nearer of the classes was the object to which all this man’s political action tended.  And yet it was a dreadful thing to him that his own daughter should desire to marry a man so much beneath her own rank and fortunes as Frank Tregear.

He would not allow himself to believe that the young people could ever prevail; but nevertheless, as the idea of the thing had not alarmed Lady Cantrip as it had him, it was necessary that he should make some apology to Mrs Finn.  Each moment of procrastination was a prick to his conscience.  He now therefore dragged out from the secrecy of some close drawer Mrs Finn’s letter and read it through to himself once again.  Yet—­it was true that he had condemned her, and that he had punished her.  Though he had done nothing to her, said nothing, and written but very little, still he had punished her most severely.

She had written as though the matter was almost one of life and death to her.  He could understand that too.  His uncle’s conduct to this woman, and his wife’s, had created the intimacy which had existed.  Through their efforts she had become almost as one of the family.  And now to be dismissed, like a servant who had misbehaved herself!  And then her arguments in her own defence were all so good,—­if only that which Lady Cantrip had laid down as law was to be held as law.  He was aware now that she had had no knowledge of the matter till his daughter had told her of her engagement at Matching.  Then it was evident also that she had sent this Tregear to him immediately on her return to London.  And at the end of the letter she had accused him of what she had been pleased to call his usual tenacity in believing ill of her!  He had been obstinate,—­too obstinate in this respect; but he did not love her the better for having told him of it.

At last he did put his apology into words.

’My dear Mrs Finn, ’I believe I had better acknowledge to you at once that I have been wrong in my judgement as to your conduct in a certain matter.  You tell me that I owe it to you to make this acknowledgement,—­and I make it.  The subject is, as you may imagine, so painful that I will spare myself if possible, any further allusion to it.  I believe I did you a wrong, and therefore I ask your pardon.