"I am truly sorry to hear it, Mary, for there are reasons why I can not consent to an engagement between him and you."
"It would not be proper to disclose my reasons; but I hope, Mary, that it will be enough to say that Colonel Clifford has other views for his son, and I have other views for my daughter. Do you think a blessing will attend you or him if you defy both fathers?"
"No, no," said poor Mary. "We have been hasty and very foolish. But, oh, papa, have you not seen from the first? Oh, why did you not warn me in time? Then I could have obeyed you easily. Now it will cost me the happiness of my life. We are very unfortunate. Poor Walter! He left me so full of hope. What shall I do? what shall I do?"
It was Mary Bartley's first grief. She thought all chance of happiness was gone forever, and she wept bitterly for Walter and herself.
Bartley was not unmoved, but he could not change his nature. The sum he had obtained by a crime was dearer to him than all his more honest gains. He was kind on the surface, but hard as marble.
"Go to your room, my child," said he, "and try and compose yourself. I am not angry with you. I ought to have watched you. But you are so young, and I trusted to that woman."
Mary retired, sobbing, and he sent for Mrs. Easton.
"Mrs. Easton," said he, "for the first time in all these years I have a fault to find with you."
"Young Clifford has been courting that child, and you have encouraged it."
"Nay, sir," said the woman, "I have not done that. She never spoke to me, nor I to her."
"Because I never observed it till to-day."
"How could I know that, sir? Everybody else observed it. Mr. Hope would have been the first to see it, if he had been in your place." This sudden thrust made Bartley wince, and showed him he had a tougher customer to deal with than poor Mary.
"You can't bear to be found fault with, Easton," said he, craftily, "and I don't wonder at it, after fourteen years' fidelity to me."
"I take no credit for that," said the woman, doggedly. "I have been paid for it."
"No doubt. But I don't always get the thing I pay for. Then let by-gones be by-gones; but just assist me now to cure the girl of this folly."
"Sir," said the woman, firmly, "it is not folly; it is wisest and best for all; and I can't make up my mind to lift a finger against it."