"But, my lord, it is, after all, a proof of his affection for her."

His lordship smiled sarcastically, and looked at him with something like
amazement, if not with contempt; but did not deign to reply.

"And now, my lord," continued the baronet, "what is to be the result
of our conference? My daughter will have all my landed property at my
death, and a large marriage-portion besides, now in the funds. I am
apparently the last of my race. The disappearance and death--I take it
for granted, as they have never since been heard of--of my brother Sir
Edward's heir, and very soon after of my own, have left me without a
hope of perpetuating my name; I shall settle my estates upon Lucy."

His lordship appeared abstracted for a few moments--"Your brother and
you," he observed, "were on terms of bitter hostility, in consequence
of what you considered an unequal marriage on his part, and I
candidly assure you, Sir Thomas, that, were it not for the mysterious
disappearance of your own son, so soon after the disappearance of his,
it would have been difficult to relieve you from dark and terrible
suspicions on the subject. As it is, the people, I believe, criminate
you still; but that is nothing; my opinion is, that the same enemy
perpetrated the double crime. Alas! the worst and bitterest of all
private feuds are the domestic. There is my own brother; in a moment of
passion and jealousy he challenged me to single combat; I had sense to
resist his impetuosity. He got a foreign appointment, and there has been
a gulf like that of the grave between him and his, and me and mine, ever
since."

"Nothing, my lord," replied Sir Thomas, his countenance, as he spoke,
becoming black with suppressed rage, "will ever remove the impression