Mrs. Charmond looked ill at ease. She might have begun to guess his
meaning; but apart from that, she had such dread of contact with
anything painful, harsh, or even earnest, that his preliminaries alone
were enough to distress her. "Yes, what is it?" she said.
"I am an old man," said Melbury, "whom, somewhat late in life, God
thought fit to bless with one child, and she a daughter. Her mother
was a very dear wife to me, but she was taken away from us when the
child was young, and the child became precious as the apple of my eye
to me, for she was all I had left to love. For her sake entirely I
married as second wife a homespun woman who had been kind as a mother
to her. In due time the question of her education came on, and I said,
'I will educate the maid well, if I live upon bread to do it.' Of her
possible marriage I could not bear to think, for it seemed like a death
that she should cleave to another man, and grow to think his house her
home rather than mine. But I saw it was the law of nature that this
should be, and that it was for the maid's happiness that she should
have a home when I was gone; and I made up my mind without a murmur to
help it on for her sake. In my youth I had wronged my dead friend, and
to make amends I determined to give her, my most precious possession,
to my friend's son, seeing that they liked each other well. Things came
about which made me doubt if it would be for my daughter's happiness to
do this, inasmuch as the young man was poor, and she was delicately
reared. Another man came and paid court to her--one her equal in
breeding and accomplishments; in every way it seemed to me that he only
could give her the home which her training had made a necessity almost.
I urged her on, and she married him. But, ma'am, a fatal mistake was
at the root of my reckoning. I found that this well-born gentleman I
had calculated on so surely was not stanch of heart, and that therein
lay a danger of great sorrow for my daughter. Madam, he saw you, and
you know the rest....I have come to make no demands--to utter no
threats; I have come simply as a father in great grief about this only
child, and I beseech you to deal kindly with my daughter, and to do
nothing which can turn her husband's heart away from her forever.
Forbid him your presence, ma'am, and speak to him on his duty as one
with your power over him well can do, and I am hopeful that the rent
between them may be patched up. For it is not as if you would lose by
so doing; your course is far higher than the courses of a simple
professional man, and the gratitude you would win from me and mine by
your kindness is more than I can say."