himself acquainted with the terms of his guardianship, and likewise of a letter my father had left for him.  He has given me leave to show a part of it to you, sir,” he added, “you will see that my father expressed a strong opinion that you were wronged in the matter of the estates, and declared that he had hoped to make some compensation by a contract between one of your daughters and my brother who died.  He charged my uncle if possible to endeavour to bring about such a match between one of your children and myself.  Thus, you see, I was acting in the strictest obedience.  You shall see the letter at once, if I may bid my fellow Gray bring my pocket-book from my valise.”

“I doubt not of your words, my young friend; your father was a gentleman of a high and scrupulous honour.  But why all this hide-and-seek work?—­I hate holes and corners!”

“You will see how we were driven, sir.  My mother came in her turn to see my uncle, and obtain his sanction to her cherished plan, and when he absolutely refused, on account of Lady Aresfield’s notorious character, if for no other, she made him understand that nothing would be easier than to get him declared a lunatic and thus to dispense with his consent.  Then, finding how the sweet society of your dear daughter had restored him to new life and spirit, she devised the notable expedient of removing what she suspected to be the chief cause of my contumacy, by marrying the poor child to him.  He scouted the idea as a preposterous and cruel sacrifice, but it presently appeared that Colonel Mar was ready to find her a debauched old lieutenant who would gladly marry—­what do I say?—­it profanes the word—­but accept the young lady for a couple of hundred pounds.  Then did I implore my uncle to seem to yield, and permit me to personate him at the ceremony.  Our names being the same, and all being done in private and in the dark, the whole was quite possible, and it seemed the only means of saving her from a terrible fate.”

“He might—­or you might, have remembered that she had a father!” said the Major.

“True.  But you were at a distance, and my mother’s displeasure against you was to be deprecated.”

“I had rather she had been offended fifty times than have had such practices with my poor little girl!” said Major Delavie.  “No wonder the proposals struck me as strange and ambiguous.  Whose writing was it?”

“Mine, at his dictation,” said the youth.  “He was unwilling, but my importunity was backed by my mother’s threats, conveyed through Hargrave, that unless Aurelia became his wife she should be disposed of otherwise, and that his sanity might be inquired into.  Hargrave, who is much attached to my uncle, and is in great awe of my Lady, was thoroughly frightened, and implored him to secure himself and the young lady by consenting, thinking, too, that anything that would rouse him would be beneficial.”

“It is strange!” mused the Major.  “A clear-headed punctilious man like your uncle, to lend himself to a false marriage!  His ten years of melancholy must have changed him greatly!”