“Indeed you must.  He has asked me to go, and I shall do it.  You can hardly let me go alone.”

“And what will you say to Lord Rufford?”

“I don’t care for Lord Rufford.  Is he to prevent my going where I please?”

“And your father,—­and the Duke,—­and the Duchess!  How can you go there after all that you have been doing since you left?”

“What do I care for the Duke and the Duchess.  It has come to that, that I care for no one.  They are all throwing me over.  That little wretch Mistletoe will do nothing.  This man really loved me.  He has never treated me badly.  Whether he live or whether he die, he has been true to me.”  Then she sat and thought of it all.  What would Lord Rufford care for her father’s letter?  If her cousin Mistletoe would not stir in her behalf what chance had she with her uncle?  And, though she had thoroughly despised her cousin, she had understood and had unconsciously believed much that he had said to her.  “In these days one can’t make a man marry!” What horrid days they were!  But John Morton would marry her to-morrow if he were well,—­in spite of all her ill usage!  Of course he would die and so she would again be overwhelmed; but yet she would go and see him.  As she determined to do so there was something even in her hard callous heart softer than the love of money and more human than the dream of an advantageous settlement in life.

CHAPTER XXIV

The Senator’s second Letter

In the mean time our friend the Senator, up in London, was much distracted in his mind, finding no one to sympathise with him in his efforts, conscious of his own rectitude of purpose, always brave against others, and yet with a sad doubt in his own mind whether it could be possible that he should always be right and everybody around him wrong.

Coming away from Mr. Mainwaring’s dinner he had almost quarrelled with John Morton, or rather John Morton had altogether quarrelled with him.  On their way back from Dillsborough to Bragton the minister elect to Patagonia had told him, in so many words, that he had misbehaved himself at the clergyman’s house.  “Did I say anything that was untrue?” asked the Senator—­“Was I inaccurate in my statements?  If so no man alive will be more ready to recall what he has said and to ask for pardon.”  Mr. Morton endeavoured to explain to him that it was not his statements which were at fault so much as the opinions based on them and the language in which those opinions were given.  But the Senator could not be made to understand that a man had not a right to his opinions, and a right also to the use of forcible language as long as he abstained from personalities.  “It was extremely personal,—­all that you said about the purchase of livings,” said Morton.  “How was I to know that?” rejoined the Senator.  “When in private society I inveigh against pickpockets I cannot imagine, sir, that there should be a pickpocket