and I found no difficulty. As for your opinions,
you have no business to have any other than those I uphold. I want to
see you in parliament. I tell you what it is, Harry," Lord Monmouth
concluded, very emphatically, "members of this family may think as they
like, but they must act as I please. You must go down on Friday to
Dartford and declare yourself a candidate for the town, or I shall
reconsider our mutual positions."

Coningsby left Monmouth House in dejection, but to his solemn resolution
of political faith he remained firm. He would not stand for Dartford
against Mr. Millbank as the nominee of a party he could not follow. In
terms of tenderness and humility he wrote to his grandfather that he
positively declined to enter parliament except as the master of his own
conduct.

In the same hour of his distress Coningsby overheard in his club two men
discussing the engagement of Miss Millbank to the Marquess of
Beaumanoir, the elder brother of his school friend, Henry Sydney.

Edith Millbank, too, had heard news at a London assembly of wealth and
fashion that Coningsby was engaged to be married to Lady Theresa Sydney.

So easily does rumour spin her stories and smite her victims with
sadness.

_V.--Lady Monmouth's Departure_

It was Flora, to whom Coningsby had been always kind and courteous, who
told Lucretia that Lord Monmouth was displeased with his grandson.

"My lord is very angry with Mr. Coningsby," she said, shaking her head
mournfully. "My lord told M. Villebecque that perhaps Mr. Coningsby
would never enter the house again."

Lucretia immediately dispatched a note to Mr. Rigby, and, on the arrival
of that gentleman, told him all she had learnt of the contention between
Harry Coningsby and her husband.

"I told you to beware of him long ago," said Lady Monmouth. "He has ever
been in the way of both of us."

"He is in my power," said Rigby. "We can crush him. He is in love with
the daughter of Millbank, the man who bought Hellingsley. I found the
younger Millbank quite domiciliated at the castle, a fact which of
itself, if known to Lord Monmouth, would ensure the lad's annihilation."

"The time is now most mature for this. Let us not conceal it from
ourselves that since this grandson's first visit to Coningsby Castle we
have neither of us really been in the same position with my lord which
we then occupied, or believed we should occupy. Go now; the game is
before you! Rid me of this Coningsby,