without further
adieu, leaving with her a conviction that she had been treated with
the greatest contumely by her husband's rebellious heir.

Nothing could be sadder than the last words which the Marquis spoke
to his son. "I don't suppose, Hampstead, that we shall ever meet
again in this world."

"Oh, father!"

"I don't think Mr. Spicer knows how bad I am."

"Will you have Sir James down from London?"

"No Sir James can do me any good, I fear. It is ill ministering to a
mind diseased."

"Why, sir, should you have a mind diseased? With few men can things
be said to be more prosperous than with you. Surely this affair of
Fanny's is not of such a nature as to make you feel that all things
are bitter round you."

"It is not that."

"What then? I hope I have not been a cause of grief to you?"

"No, my boy;--no. It irks me sometimes to think that I should have
trained you to ideas which you have taken up too violently. But it is
not that."

"My mother--?"

"She has set her heart against me,--against you and Fanny. I feel
that a division has been made between my two families. Why should my
daughter be expelled from my own house? Why should I not be able to
have you here, except as an enemy in the camp? Why am I to have that
man take up arms against me, whom I have fed in idleness all his
life?"

"I would not let him trouble my thoughts."

"When you are old and weak you will find it hard to banish thoughts
that trouble you. As to going, where am I to go to?"

"Come to Hendon."

"And leave her here with him, so that all the world shall say that I
am running away from my own wife? Hendon is your house now, and this
is mine;--and here I must stay till my time has come."

This was very sad, not as indicating the state of his father's
health, as to which he was more disposed to take the doctor's opinion
than that of the patient, but as showing the infirmity of his
father's mind. He had been aware of a certain weakness in his
father's character,--a desire not so much for ruling as for seeming
to rule all that were around him. The Marquis had wished to be
thought a despot even when he had delighted in submitting himself to
the stronger mind of his first wife. Now he felt the chains that were
imposed upon him, so that they galled him when he could not throw
them off. All this was very sad to Hampstead; but it did not make him
think that his father's health had in truth been seriously affected.

END OF VOL. I.