tive production was written without any sense of the peril
that makes prophecy.

It suited Sir Austin to write thus. It was a channel to his acrimony
moderated through his philosophy. The letter was a reply to a vehement
entreaty from Lady Blandish for him to come up to Richard and forgive him
thoroughly: Richard's name was not mentioned in it.

"He tries to be more than he is," thought the lady: and she began
insensibly to conceive him less than he was.

The baronet was conscious of a certain false gratification in his son's
apparent obedience to his wishes and complete submission; a gratification
he chose to accept as his due, without dissecting or accounting for it.
The intelligence reiterating that Richard waited, and still waited;
Richard's letters, and more his dumb abiding and practical penitence;
vindicated humanity sufficiently to stop the course of virulent
aphorisms. He could speak, we have seen, in sorrow for this frail nature
of ours, that he had once stood forth to champion. "But how long will
this last?" he demanded, with the air of Hippias. He did not reflect how
long it had lasted. Indeed, his indigestion of wrath had made of him a
moral Dyspepsy.

It was not mere obedience that held Richard from the aims of his young
wife: nor was it this new knightly enterprise he had presumed to
undertake. Hero as he was, a youth, open to the insane promptings of hot
blood, he was not a fool. There had been talk between him and Mrs. Doria
of his mother. Now that he had broken from his father, his heart spoke
for her. She lived, he knew: he knew no more. Words painfully hovering
along the borders of plain speech had been communicated to him, filling
him with moody imaginings. If he thought of her, the red was on his face,
though he could not have said why. But now, after canvassing the conduct
of his father, and throwing him aside as a terrible riddle, he asked Mrs.
Doria to tell him of his other parent. As softly as she could she told
the story. To her the shame was past: she could weep for the poor lady.
Richard dropped no tears. Disgrace of this kind is always present to a
son, and, educated as he had been, these tidings were a vivid fire in his
brain. He resolved to hunt her out, and take her from the man. Here was
work set to his hand. All her dear husband did was right to Lucy. She
encouraged him to stay for that purpose, thinking it also served another.
There was Tom Bakewell to watch over Lucy: there was wo