's; for it must be said that the conquering Captain had never
felt so full of pity to any girl or woman to whom he fancied he had done
damage, as to Emilia. He enjoyed a most thorough belief that she was
growing up to perplex him with her love, and he had not consequently
attempted to precipitate the measure; but her flight had prematurely
perplexed him. In grave debate with the ends of his moustache for a
term, he concluded by accusing Merthyr Powys; and with a little feeling
of spite not unknown to masculine dignity, he wrote to Merthyr's
half-sister--"merely to inquire, being aware that whatever he does
you have been consulted on, and the friends of this Miss Belloni are
distressed by her absence."

The ladies of Brookfield were accustomed to their father's occasional
unpremeditated absences, and neither of them had felt an apprehension
which she could not dismiss, until one morning Mr. Powys sent up his
card to Arabella, requesting permission to speak with her alone.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Georgiana Ford would have had little claim among the fair saints to be
accepted by them as one of their order. Her reputation for coldness was
derived from the fact of her having stood a siege from Captain Gambier.
But she loved a creature of earth too well to put up a hand for
saintly honours. The passion of her life centred in devotion to her
half-brother. Those who had studied her said, perhaps with a touch of
malignity, that her religious instinct had its source in a desire to
gain some place of intercession for him. Merthyr had leaned upon it too
often to doubt the strength of it, whatever its purity might be. She,
when barely more than a child (a girl of sixteen), had followed him over
the then luckless Italian fields--sacrificing as much for a cause
that she held to be trivial, as he in the ardour of his half-fanatical
worship. Her theory was: "These Italians are in bondage, and since
heaven permits it, there has been guilt. By endurance they are
strengthened, by suffering chastened; so let them endure and suffer."
She would cleave to this view with many variations of pity. Merthyr's
experience was tolerant to the weaker vessel's young delight in
power, which makes her sometimes, though sweet and merciful by nature,
enunciate Hebraic severities oracularly. He smiled, and was never
weary of pointing out practical refutations. Whereat she said, "Will a
thousand instances change the principle?" When the brain, and especially