"There is no need for you to say such things as that to me, Elisabeth; you know as well as I do that I would give my life to save you from sorrow and to ensure your happiness; but I can not be guilty of a shabby trick even for this. Can't you see that the very fact that I care for you so much, makes it all the more impossible for me to do anything shady in your name?"
"As for the work-people," he went on, ignoring her interruption, "of course no one will ever do as much for them as you are doing. But that isn't the question. The fact that one man would make a better use of money than another wouldn't justify me in robbing Peter to increase Paul's munificence. Now would it?"
"That's perfectly different. It is all right for you to go on advertising for that Farringdon man in agony columns, and I shouldn't be so silly as to make a fuss about giving up the money if he turned up. You know that well enough. But it does seem to me to be over-conscientious and hyper-disagreeable on your part to go off to Australia--just when I am so lonely and want you so much--in search of the man who is to turn me out of my kingdom and reign in my stead. I can't think how you can want to do such a thing!" Elisabeth was fighting desperately hard; the full power of her strong will was bent upon making Christopher do what she wished and stay with her in England; not only because she needed him, but because she felt that this was a Hastings or Waterloo between them, and that if she lost this battle, her ancient supremacy was gone forever.
"I don't want to go and do it, heaven knows! I hate and loathe doing anything which you don't wish me to do. But there is no question of wanting in the matter, as far as I can see. It is a simple question between right and wrong--between honour and dishonour--and so I really have no alternative."
"Then you have made up your mind to go out to Australia and turn up every stone in order to find this George Farringdon's son?"
"More than I care for anything else in the world, Elisabeth. Need you ask?"
For one wild moment Christopher felt that he must tell Elisabeth how passionately he would woo her, should she lose her fortune; and how he would spend his life and his income in trying to make her happy, should George Farringdon's son be found and she cease to be one of the greatest heiresses in the Midlands. But he held himself back by the bitter knowledge of how cruelly appearances were against him. He had made up his mind to do the right thing at all costs; at least, he had not exactly made up his mind--he saw the straight path, and the possibility of taking any other never occurred to him. But if he succeeded in this hateful and (to a man of his type) inevitable quest, he would not only sacrifice Elisabeth's interests, he would also further his own by making it possible for him to ask her to marry him--a thing which he felt he could never do as long as she was one of the wealthiest women in Mershire, and he was only the manager of her works. Duty is never so difficult to certain men as when it wears the garb and carries with it the rewards of self-interest; others, on the contrary, find that a joint-stock company, composed of the Right and the Profitable, supplies its passengers with a most satisfactory permanent way whereby to travel through life. There is no doubt that these latter have by far the more comfortable journey; but whether they are equally contented when they have reached that journey's end, none of them have as yet returned to tell us.