but what your father gives you,’ said Lady Cantrip.  ’Papa can give it us without any trouble,’ said Lady Mary.  This child had a clear idea of what she thought to be her own rights.  Being the child of rich parents she had the right to money.  Being a woman she had a right to a husband.  Having been born free she had a right to choose one for herself.  Having had a man’s love given to her she had a right to keep it.  ’One doesn’t know which she is most like, her father or her mother,’ Lady Cantrip said afterwards to her husband.  ’She has his cool determination, and her hot-headed obstinacy.’

She did show the letters to the Duke, and in answer to a word or two from him explained that she could not take upon herself to debar her guest from the use of the post.  ’But she will write nothing without letting you know it.’

‘She ought to write nothing at all.’

‘What she feels is much worse than what she writes.’

‘If there were no intercourse she would forget him.’

‘Ah; I don’t know,’ said the Countess sorrowfully, ’I thought so once.’

’All children are determined as long as they are allowed to have their own way.’

’I mean to say that it is the nature of her character to be obstinate.  Most girls are prone to yield.  They have not character enough to stand against opposition.  I am not speaking now only of affairs like this.  It would be the same with her in any thing.  Have you not always found it so?’

Then he had to acknowledge to himself that he had never found out anything in reference to his daughter’s character.  She had been properly sweet, affectionate, always obedient to him;—­the most charming plaything in the world on the few occasions in which he had allowed himself to play.  But as to her actual disposition, he had never taken any trouble to inform himself.  She had been left to her mother,—­as other girls are left.  And his sons had been left to their tutors.  And now he had no control over any of them.  ’She must be made to obey like others,’ he said at last, speaking through his teeth.

There was something in this which almost frightened Lady Cantrip.  She could not bear to hear him say that the girl must be made to yield with that spirit of despotic power under which women were restrained in years now passed.  If she could have spoken her own mind it would have been to this effect:  ’Let us do what we can to lead her away from this desire of hers; and in order that we may do so, let us tell her that her marriage with Mr Tregear is out of the question.  But if we do not succeed,—­let us give way.  Let us make it a matter of joy that the young man himself is so acceptable and well-behaved.’  That was her idea, and with that she would have indoctrinated the Duke had she been able.  But his was different.  ‘She must be made to obey,’ he said.  And, as he said it, he seemed to be indifferent to the sorrow which such enforced obedience might bring upon his child.  In answer to this she could only shake her head.  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.  ’Do you think we ought to yield?’