‘I mentioned her name,’ said Tregear, ’because I thought she had been a friend of the family.’

’That will do, sir.  I have been greatly pained as well as surprised by what I have heard.  Of the real state of the case I can form no opinion till I see my daughter.  You, of course, will hold no further intercourse with her.’  He paused as though for a promise, but Tregear did not feel himself called upon to say a word in one direction or the other.  ’It will be my care that you shall not do so.  Good-morning, sir.’

Tregear, who during the interview had been standing, then bowed, turned upon his heel and left the room.

The Duke seated himself, and, crossing his arms upon his chest, sat for an hour looking up at the ceiling.  Why was it that, for him, such a world of misery had been prepared?  What wrong had he done, of what imprudence had been guilty, that, at every turn of life, something should occur so grievous as to make him think of himself the most wretched of men?  No man had ever loved his wife more dearly than he had done; and yet now, in that very excess of tenderness which her death had occasioned, he was driven to accuse her of a great sin against himself, in that she had kept from him her knowledge of this affair;—­for, when he came to turn the matter over in his mind, he did believe Tregear’s statement as to her encouragement.  Then, too, he had been proud of his daughter.  He was a man so reticent and undemonstrative in his manner that he had never known how to make confidential friends of his children.  In his sons hitherto he had not taken pride.  They were gallant, well-grown, handsome boys with a certain dash of cleverness,—­more like their mother than their father; but they had not as yet done anything as he would have made them do it.  But the girl, in the perfection of her beauty, in the quiescence of her manner, in the nature of her studies, and in the general dignity of her bearing, had seemed to be all that he had desired.  And now she had engaged herself, behind his back, to the younger son of a county squire!

But his anger against Mrs Finn was hotter than the anger against anyone in his own family.

CHAPTER 6

Major Tifto

Major Tifto had lately become a member of the Beargarden Club, under the auspices of his friend Lord Silverbridge.  It was believed, by those who had made some inquiry into the matter, that the Major had really served a campaign as a volunteer in the Carlist army in the north of Spain.  When, therefore, it was declared by someone else that he was not a major at all, his friends were able to contradict the assertion, and to impute it to slander.  Instances were brought up,—­declared by these friends to be innumerable, but which did, in truth, amount to three of four,—­of English gentlemen who had come up from a former Carlist war, bearing the title of colonel, without any contradiction or invidious remark.  Had this gallant officer appeared as Colonel Tifto, perhaps less might have been said about it.  There was a little lack of courage in the title which he did choose.  But it was accepted at last, and, as Major Tifto, he was proposed, seconded, and elected at the Beargarden.