ions alone,--Mrs. Finn was closeted for an hour with the Duke
in his study. "I think you ought to be aware," she said to the Duke,
"that though I trust Mary implicitly and know her to be thoroughly
high principled, I cannot be responsible for her, if I remain with
her here."

"I do not quite follow your meaning."

"Of course there is but one matter on which there can, probably,
be any difference between us. If she should choose to write to Mr.
Tregear, or to send him a message, or even to go to him, I could not
prevent it."

"Go to him!" exclaimed the horrified Duke.

"I merely suggest such a thing in order to make you understand that I
have absolutely no control over her."

"What control have I?"

"Nay; I cannot define that. You are her father, and she acknowledges
your authority. She regards me as a friend--and as such treats me
with the sweetest affection. Nothing can be more gratifying than her
manner to me personally."

"It ought to be so."

"She has thoroughly won my heart. But still I know that if there were
a difference between us she would not obey me. Why should she?"

"Because you hold my deputed authority."

"Oh, Duke, that goes for very little anywhere. No one can depute
authority. It comes too much from personal accidents, and too little
from reason or law to be handed over to others. Besides, I fear, that
on one matter concerning her you and I are not agreed."

"I shall be sorry if it be so."

"I feel that I am bound to tell you my opinion."

"Oh yes."

"You think that in the end Lady Mary will allow herself to be
separated from Tregear. I think that in the end they will become man
and wife."

This seemed to the Duke to be not quite so bad as it might have been.
Any speculation as to results were very different from an expressed
opinion as to propriety. Were he to tell the truth as to his own
mind, he might perhaps have said the same thing. But one is not to
relax in one's endeavours to prevent that which is wrong, because one
fears that the wrong may be ultimately perpetrated. "Let that be as
it may," he said, "it cannot alter my duty."

"Nor mine, Duke, if I may presume to think that I have a duty in this
matter."

"That you should encounter the burden of the duty binds me to you for
ever."

"If it be that they will certainly be married one day--"

"Who has said that? Who has admitted that?"

"If it be so; if it seems to me that it must be so,--then how can I
be anxious to p