That he was unjust to her,—cruelly unjust,
she was quite sure. He accused her of intentional
privity as to a secret which it behooved him to know,
and of being a party to that secrecy. Whereas
from the moment in which she had heard the secret she
had determined that it must be made known to him.
She felt that she had deserved his good opinion in
all things, but in nothing more than in the way in
which she had acted in this matter. And yet he
had treated her with an imperious harshness which amounted
to insolence. What a letter it was that he had
written to her! The very tips of her ears tingled
with heat as she read again to herself. None
of the ordinary courtesies of epistle-craft had been
preserved either in the beginning or in the end.
It was worse even than if he had called her, Madam
without an epithet. ’The Duke understands—’
‘The Duke thinks—’ ‘The
Duke feels—’ feels that he should
not be troubled with either letters or conversation;
the upshot of it all being that the Duke declared
her to have shown herself unworthy of being treated
like a lady! And this is after all she had done!
She would not bear it. That at present was all
that she could say to herself. She was not angry
with Lady Mary. She did not doubt but that the
girl had done the best in her power to bring her father
to reason. But because Lady Mary had failed, she,
Mrs Finn, was not going to put up with so grievous
an injury. And she was forced to bear all this
alone! There was none with whom she could communicate;—no
one from whom she could ask advice. She would
not bring her husband into a quarrel which might be
prejudicial to his position as a member of his political
party. There was no one else to whom she would
tell the secret of Lady Mary’s love. And
yet she could not bear this injustice done to her.
Then she wrote as follows to the Duke:
’Mrs Finn presents her compliments to the Duke
of Omnium. Mrs Finn finds it to be essential
to her that she should see the Duke in reference to
his letter to her. If his Grace will let her
know on what day and at what hour he will be kind
enough to call on her, Mrs Finn will be at home to
receive him. ‘Park Lane. Thursday
12th May, 18-’
CHAPTER 14
The New Member for Silverbridge
Lord Silverbridge was informed that it would be right
that he should go down to Silverbridge a few days
before the election, to make himself known to the
electors. As the day for the election drew near
it was understood that there would be no other candidate.
The Conservative side was the popular side among the
tradesmen of Silverbridge. Silverbridge had been
proud to be honoured by the services of the heir of
the House of Omnium, even while that heir had been
a Liberal,—had regarded it as so much a
matter of course that the borough should be at his
disposal that no question as to politics had ever
arisen while he retained the seat. And had the
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The Duke's Children from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
