The Law and the Lady

ready to go through it all over again for another kiss. Only give a woman love, and there is nothing she will not venture, suffer, and do.

'No, they have done with objecting. They have remembered at last that I am of age, and that I can choose for myself. They have been pleading with me, Eustace, to give you up. My aunt, whom I thought rather a hard woman, has been crying—for the first time in my experience of her. My uncle, always kind and good to me, has been kinder and better than ever. He has told me that if I persist in becoming your wife, I shall not be deserted on my wedding-day. Wherever we may marry, he will be there to read the service, and my aunt will go to the church with me. But he entreats me to consider seriously what I am doing—to consent to a separation from you for a time—to consult other people on my position toward you, if I am not satisfied with his opinion. Oh, my darling, they are as anxious to part us as if you were the worst instead of the best of men!'

'Has anything happened since yesterday to increase their distrust of me?' he asked.

'Yes.'

'What is it?'

'You remember referring my uncle to a friend of yours and of his?'

'Yes. To Major Fitz-David.'

'My uncle has written to Major Fitz-David.'

'Why?'

He pronounced that one word in a tone so utterly unlike his natural tone that his voice sounded quite strange to me.

'You won't be angry, Eustace, if I tell you?' I said. 'My uncle, as I understood him, had several motives for writing to the major. One of them was to inquire if he knew your mother's address.'

Eustace suddenly stood still.

I paused at the same moment, feeling that I could venture no further without the risk of offending him.

To speak the truth, his conduct, when he first mentioned our engagement to my uncle, had been (so far as appearances went) a little flighty and strange. The vicar had naturally questioned him about his family. He had answered that his father was dead; and he had consented, though not very readily, to announce his contemplated marriage to his mother. Informing us that she too lived in the country, he had gone to see her, without more particularly mentioning her address. In two days he had returned to the Vicarage with a very startling message. His mother intended no disrespect to me or my relatives, but she disapproved so absolutely of her son's marriage that she (and the members of her family, who all agreed with her) would refuse to be present at the ceremony, if Mr. Woodville persisted in keeping his engagement with Dr. Starkweather's niece. Being asked to explain this extraordinary communication, Eustace had told us that his mother and his sisters were bent on his marrying another lady, and that they were bitterly mortified and disappointed by his choosing a stranger to the family. This explanation was enough for me; it implied, so far as I was concerned, a compliment to my superior influence over Eustace, which a woman always receives with pleasure. But it failed to satisfy my uncle and my aunt. The vicar expressed to Mr. Woodville a wish to write to his mother, or to see her, on the subject of her strange message. Eustace obstinately declined to mention his mother's address, on the ground that the vicar's interference would be utterly useless. My uncle at once drew the conclusion that the mystery about the address indicated something wrong. He refused to favor Mr. Woodville's renewed proposal for my hand, and he wrote the same day to make inquiries of Mr. Woodville's reference and of his own friend Major Fitz-David.

Under such circumstances as these, to speak of my uncle's motives was to venture on very delicate ground. Eustace relieved me from further embarrassment by asking a question to which I could easily reply.

'Has your uncle received any answer from Major Fitz-David?' he inquired.

'Yes.

'Were you allowed to read it?' His voice sank as he said those words; his face betrayed a sudden anxiety which it pained me to see.

'I have got the answer with me to show you,' I said.

He almost snatched the letter out of my hand; he turned his back on me to read it by the light of the moon. The letter was short enough to be soon read. I could have repeated it at the time. I can repeat it now.

'DEAR VICAR—Mr. Eustace Woodville is quite correct in stating to you that he is a gentleman by birth and position, and that he inherits (under his deceased father's will) an independent fortune of two thousand a year.

'Always yours,

'LAWRENCE FITZ-DAVID.'

'Can anybody wish for a plainer answer than that?' Eustace asked, handing the letter back to me.

'If I had written for information about you,' I answered, 'it would have been plain enough for me.'

'Is it not plain enough for your uncle?'

'No.'

'What does he say?'

'Why need you care to know, my darling?'

'I want to know, Valeria. There must be no secret between us in this matter. Did your uncle say anything when he showed you the major's letter?'

'Yes.'

'What was it?'

'My uncle told me that his letter of inquiry filled three pages, and he bade me observe that the major's answer contained one sentence only. He said, 'I volunteered to go to Major Fitz-David and talk the matter over. You see he takes no notice of my proposal. I asked him for the address of Mr. Woodville's mother. He passes over my request, as he has passed over my proposal—he studiously confines himself to the shortest possible statement of bare facts.