Tregear. Perhaps you have a sister.'

'I have no sister as it happens.'

'But you can imagine what your feelings would be. Should you like
to think of a sister as being engaged to a man without the
knowledge of any of her family?'

'It was not so. The Duchess knew it. The present condition of
things is altogether an accident.'

'It is an accident that must be brought to an end.'

'Of course it must be brought to an end. I am not such a fool as
to suppose that I can make her my wife without telling her
father.'

'I mean at once, Mr Tregear.'

'It seems to me that you are rather dictating to me, Mrs Finn.'

'I owe you an apology of course, for meddling in your affairs at
all. But as it will be more conducive to your success that the
Duke should hear this from you than from me, and as I feel I am
bound by my duty to him and to Lady Mary to see that he be not
left in ignorance, I think that I am doing you a service.'

'I do not like to have a constraint put upon me.'

'That, Mr Tregear, is what a gentleman, I fancy, very often feels