‘But she left the house without telling him, my dear.’

‘But it was because of what she did that he was told.’

’That is true; but I doubt whether she should have left him an hour in ignorance.’

‘But it was I who told her.  She would have betrayed me.’

’She was not a fit recipient for your confidence, Mary.  But I do not wish to accuse her.  She seems a high-minded woman, and I think that your papa has been hard upon her.’

‘And mamma knew it always,’ said Mary.  To this Lady Cantrip could give no answer.  Whatever the cause for anger the Duke might have against Mrs Finn, there had been cause for much more against his wife.  But she had freed herself from all accusation by death.

Lady Mary wrote to her father, declaring that she was most particularly anxious to see him and talk to him about Mrs Finn.

CHAPTER 13

The Duke’s Injustice

No advantage whatever was obtained by Lady Mary’s interview with her father.  He persisted that Mrs Finn had been untrue to him when she left Matching without telling him all that she knew of his daughter’s engagement with Mr Tregear.  No doubt by degrees that idea which he at first entertained was expelled from his heat,—­the idea that she had been cognizant of the whole thing before she came to Matching; but even this was done so slowly that there was no moment at which he became aware of any lessened feeling of indignation.  To his thinking she had betrayed her trust, and he could not be got by his daughter to say that he would forgive her.  He certainly could not be got to say that he would apologise for the accusation he had made.  It was nothing less that his daughter asked; and he could hardly refrain himself from anger when she asked it.  ‘There should not have been a moment,’ he said, ’before she came and told me and told me all.’  Poor Lady Mary’s position was certainly uncomfortable enough.  The great sin,—­the sin which was so great that to have known it for a day without revealing it was in itself a damning sin on the part of Mrs Finn,—­was Lady Mary’s sin.  And she differed so entirely from her father as to think that the sin of her own was a virtue, and that to have spoken of it to him would have been, on the part of Mrs Finn, a treachery so deep that no woman ought to have forgive it!  When he spoke of a matter which deeply affected his honour,—­she could hardly refrain from asserting that his honour was quite safe in his daughter’s hands.  And when in his heart he declared that it should have been Mrs Finn’s first care to save him from disgrace, Lady Mary did break out, ‘Papa there could be no disgrace.’  ’That for a moment shall be laid aside,’ he said, with that manner by which even his peers in council had never been able not to be awed, ’but if you communicate with Mrs Finn at all you must be made to understand that I regard her conduct as inexcusable.’