ritten
to Captain Langrishe, saying nothing to her about it, stealing out, in
fact, at night to post the letter secretly, he whose correspondence,
such as it was--he was no great penman--had always lain in the
letter-basket on the hall table for the servants to scrutinise the
addresses if they would before it was posted.

When the answer came he congratulated himself on his forethought.
Luckily, that morning he was first at the breakfast-table. Of late
Nelly, who had been wont to rise as cheerfully as a waking bird, was
tardy occasionally. The General suspected broken sleep, and had bidden
the servants tenderly not to call her, although the breakfast-table was
not the same thing with no bright face and golden head opposite to him.

When he had read the letter he thrust it into an inner pocket. The
servant, who was attending, went away at the moment, and the General got
up quickly, and with a stealthy glance at the door, buried the letter in
the heart of the fire, raked the coals over it, and was in his place
before the servant returned.

"Confound the fellow!" he said under his breath.

Plainly, there was nothing more to be done. The child had to go through
it. People had to endure such things. Yet he was miserable, watching
furtively her dimmed roses and the circles about her eyes. His little
Nell, who had lived in the sunshine all her days!

It was, perhaps, not to be wondered at that, in the perturbation of his
mind, the pendulum should have swung towards Robin. "Confound the
fellow!"--(meaning Captain Langrishe)--"What did he mean by making Nelly
unhappy?" A still, small voice whispered to the General that the young
man was acting on some foolish, overstrained, honourable scruple just as
he would have done himself in his youth--nay, to-day, for the matter of
that. But he would not listen to the voice. He fretted and fumed, puffed
himself up into a great rage as men of his temperament will. Confound
the fellow! He had gone half-way to meet him, for Nelly's sake, and the
fellow had refused to budge. Confound him and be hanged to him! The
General would have used much worse language if the simple piety which
hid behind his blusterousness had not come in to restrain him.

He blamed himself--to be sure, he blamed himself. What a selfish old
curmudgeon he had been, always thinking of himself and his own likes and
dislikes! Where could his Nelly find greater security for happiness than
in the keeping of Gerald's son?