Then there had been some fitful confidence during those few days
of acute illness. Why should not the girl have the man if he were
lovable? And the Duchess referred to her own early days when she
had loved, and to the great ruin that had come upon her heart when
she had been severed from the man she loved. 'Not but that it has
been all for the best,' she had said. 'Not but that Plantagenet
has been to me all that a husband should be. Only if she can be
spared what I suffered, let her be spared.' Even when these
things had been said to her, Mrs Finn had found herself unable to
ask questions. She could not bring herself to inquire whether the
girl had in truth given her heart to his young Tregear. The one
was nineteen and the other as yet but two-and-twenty! But though
she asked no questions, she almost knew that it must be so. And
she knew also that the father was, as yet, quite in the dark on the
matter. How was it possible that in such circumstances she should
assume the part of the girl's confidential friend and monitress?
Were she to do so she must immediately tell the father everything.
In such a position no one could be a better friend than Lady
Cantrip, and Mrs Finn had already almost made up her mind that,
should Lady Cantrip occupy the place, she would tell her ladyship
all that had passed between herself and the Duchess on the
subject.

Of what hopes she might have, or what fears, about her girl, the
Duchess had said no word to her husband. But when she had believed
that the things of the world were fading away from her, and when
he was sitting by her bedside,--dumb, because at such a moment he
knew not how to express the tenderness of his heart,--holding her
hand, and trying so to listen to her words, that he might collect
and remember every wish, she had murmured something about the