at
quick removal would not otherwise have been made. But what mattered
it to him whether she were at Yoxham or in Keppel Street? He could do
nothing. There would come a time,--but it had not come as yet,--when
he must go to the girl boldly, let her be guarded as she might, and
demand her hand. But the demand must be made to herself and herself
only. When that time came there should be no question of money.
Whether she were the undisturbed owner of hundreds of thousands, or
a rejected claimant to her father's name, the demand should be made
in the same tone and with the same assurance. He knew well the whole
history of her life. She had been twenty years old last May, and it
was now September. When the next spring should come round she would
be her own mistress, free to take herself from her mother's hands,
and free to give herself to whom she would. He did not say that
nothing should be done during those eight months; but, according to
his lights, he could not make his demand with full force till she was
a woman, as free from all legal control, as was he as a man.

The chances were much against him. He knew what were the allurements
of luxury. There were moments in which he told himself that of course
she would fall into the nets that were spread for her. But then again
there would grow within his bosom a belief in truth and honesty which
would buoy him up. How grand would be his victory, how great the
triumph of a human soul's nobility, if, after all these dangers, if
after all the enticements of wealth and rank, the girl should come
to him, and lying on his bosom, should tell him that she had never
wavered from him through it all! Of this, at any rate, he assured
himself,--that he would not go prying, with clandestine manoeuvres,
about that house in Keppel Street. The Countess might have told him
where she intended to live without increasing her danger.

While things were in this state with him he received a letter from
Messrs. Norton and Flick, the attorneys, asking him to call on Mr.
Flick at their chambers in Lincoln's Inn. The Solicitor-General had
suggested to the attorney that he should see the man, and Mr. Flick
had found himself bound to obey; but in truth he hardly knew what to
say to Daniel Thwaite. It must be his object of course to buy off
the tailor; but such arrangements are difficult, and require great
caution. And then Mr. Flick was employed by Earl Lovel, and this man
was the friend of the Earl's op