fact in their
power to convince her--a plain girl, and conscious of her plainness--that
Mr. Mark Gibson had never thought of her in the way of marriage till
after her father's accession to his fortune; and that it was the
estate--not the young lady--that he was in love with. I suppose it will
never be known in this world how far this supposition of theirs was true.
My Lady Ludlow had always spoken as if it was; but perhaps events, which
came to her knowledge about this time, altered her opinion. At any rate,
the end of it was, Laurentia refused Mark, and almost broke her heart in
doing so. He discovered the suspicions of Sir Hubert and Lady Galindo,
and that they had persuaded their daughter to share in them. So he flung
off with high words, saying that they did not know a true heart when they
met with one; and that although he had never offered till after Sir
Lawrence's death, yet that his father knew all along that he had been
attached to Laurentia, only that he, being the eldest of five children,
and having as yet no profession, had had to conceal, rather than to
express, an attachment, which, in those days, he had believed was
reciprocated. He had always meant to study for the bar, and the end of
all he had hoped for had been to earn a moderate income, which he might
ask Laurentia to share. This, or something like it, was what he said.
But his reference to his father cut two ways. Old Mr. Gibson was known
to be very keen about money. It was just as likely that he would urge
Mark to make love to the heiress, now she was an heiress, as that he
would have restrained him previously, as Mark said he had done. When
this was repeated to Mark, he became proudly reserved, or sullen, and
said that Laurentia, at any rate, might have known him better. He left
the country, and went up to London to study law soon afterwards; and Sir
Hubert and Lady Galindo thought they were well rid of him. But Laurentia
never ceased reproaching herself, and never did to her dying day, as I
believe. The words, "She might have known me better," told to her by
some kind friend or other, rankled in her mind, and were never forgotten.
Her father and mother took her up to London the next year; but she did
not care to visit--dreaded going out even for a drive, lest she should
see Mark Gibson's reproachful eyes--pined and lost her health. Lady
Ludlow saw this change with regret, and was told the cause by Lady
Galindo, who of course, gave her