your Grace were in my place you would feel that as long as you
were assured by the young lady that your affection was valued by her
you would not be deterred by the opposition of her father. That you
should yield to me, of course I do not expect; that Lady Mary should
be persistent in her present feelings, when she knows your mind,
perhaps I have no right to hope; but should she be so persistent as
to make you feel that her happiness depends, as mine does, on our
marriage, then I shall believe that you will yield at last."

"Never!" said the Duke. "Never! I shall never believe that my
daughter's happiness can be assured by a step which I should regard
as disgraceful to her."

"Disgraceful is a violent word, my Lord."

"It is the only word that will express my meaning."

"And one which I must be bold enough to say you are not justified
in using. Should she become my wife to-morrow, no one in England
would think she had disgraced herself. The Queen would receive her
on her marriage. All your friends would hold out their hands to
us,--presuming that we had your goodwill."

"But you would not have it."

"Her disgrace would not depend upon that, my Lord. Should your
daughter so dispose of herself, as to disgrace herself,--which I
think to be impossible,--your countenance could not set her right.
Nor can the withdrawal of your countenance condemn her before the
world if she does that with herself which any other lady might do and
remain a lady."

The Duke, when he heard this, even in the midst of his wrath, which
was very violent, and in the midst of his anger, which was very
acute, felt that he had to deal with a man,--with one whom he could
not put off from him into the gutter, and there leave as buried in
the mud. And there came, too, a feeling upon him, which he had no
time to analyse, but of which he was part aware, that this terrible
indiscretion on the part of his daughter and of his late wife was
less wonderful than it had at first appeared to be. But not on that
account was he the less determined to make the young man feel that
his parental opposition would be invincible.

"It is quite impossible, sir. I do not think that I need say anything
more." Then, while Tregear was meditating whether to make any reply,
the Duke asked a question which had better have been left unasked.
The asking of it diminished somewhat from that ducal, grand-ducal,
quasi-archducal, almost godlike superiority which he had assumed, a