“Only his daughter Annie, a girl of fourteen or fifteen years.”

“What will become of her when her father dies?”

“Sir, how can I divine her future?”

“It is your duty to divine her future.  Her father has no gold to leave her—­he gave it to me—­and the land he cannot leave her; yet she has a natural right, beyond either mine or yours.”

“I give her my right, cheerfully.”

“You cannot give it to her—­unless you outlaw yourself from your native country—­strip yourself of your citizenship—­declare yourself unworthy to be a son of the land that gave you birth.  Even if you perpetrated such a civil crime, you would render no service to Annie.  Your right would simply lapse to the son of Herbert Hyde—­the young man you met at Oxford—­”

“Surely, sir, we need not talk of that fellow.  I have already told you what a very sycophant he is.  He licks the dust before any man of wealth or authority; his tongue hangs down to his shoe-buckles.”

“Well then, sir, what is your duty to Annie Hyde?”

“I do not conceive myself to have any special duty to Annie Hyde.”

“Upon my honour, you are then perversely stupid!  But it is impossible that you do not realize what justice, honour, gratitude and generosity demand from you!  When your uncle wrote me that pitiful letter which informed me of the death of his last son, my first thought was that his daughter must be assured her right in the succession.  There is one way to compass this.  You know what that way is.—­Why do you not speak?”

“Because, sir, if I confess your evident opinion to be just, I bind myself to carry it out, because of its justice.”

“Is it not just?”

“It might be just to Annie and very unjust to me.”

“No, sir.  Justice is a thing absolute; it is not altered by circumstances, especially for a circumstance so trivial as a young man’s idle fancy.”

“’Tis no idle fancy.  I love Cornelia Moran.”

“You have already loved a score of beauties—­and forgotten them.”

“I have admired, and forgot.  If I had loved, I should not have forgotten.  Now, I love.”

“Then, sir, be a man, a noble man, and put your personal gratification below justice, honour, and gratitude.  This is the first real trial of your life, George, are you going to play the coward in it?”

“If you could only see Miss Moran!”

“I should find it difficult to be civil to her.  George, I put before you a duty that no gentleman can by any possibility evade.”

“If this arrangement is so important, why was I not told of it, ere this?”

“It is scarcely a year since your Cousin Harry’s death.  Annie is not fifteen years old.  I did not wish to force matters.  I intended you to go to England next year, and I hoped that a marriage might come without my advice or my interference.  It seemed to me that Annie’s position would itself open your heart to her.”