“So he asked you to be his wife, and you refused him. What does that mean, Bride? Does it mean that you do not like him?” “No, papa; it means that I do not love him.” The Duke paused and looked into the fire. The expression on his face made the girl ask quickly-- “You are not vexed with me for answering as I did?” “No, my child, I am not vexed. You were right to answer according to the dictates of your own heart. And yet, had things been a little different with Eustace, I would gladly have seen you his wife.” A faint glow of colour stole into Bride’s face. “If things were different with Eustace,” she said very softly, “I think perhaps I could have answered differently. I think about him a great deal. I am grateful for his love, and it hurts me to have none to give in return; but as things now are, I cannot give it to him. He grieves me so often. I know that he would make me miserable if I had let his earnestness carry me away. He might be so great, so noble, so good, but he just fails in everything; and I think he would break my heart if I were his wife.” The Duke looked earnestly into her earnest eyes. “It is his views that stagger you? Yes, my child, that is what I feel about him--and them. I will not deny that when first he came to us I had hopes that you and he might learn to love one another. You will never be anything but a rich woman, Bride, even though Penarvon and its revenues must go to Eustace. You will have your mother’s ample fortune, and everything I have to leave independently of the estate. You will have wealth and position; but you are very lonely. You have no near relations, and your mother’s health made it impossible for you to be taken to London and presented and introduced to society. Your life has been a very solitary one, and I have regretted it. I confess I had hopes with regard to Eustace; but when I learnt what manner of man he was, and how he stands pledged to a policy which I can never approve in the abstract, though I will not deny that some of its concrete measures are just and fair, I began to feel differently on the subject. And you have the same feelings, it seems, as I.” Bride slipped to a footstool at her father’s feet, and leaned upon his knee with his hand still held in hers, and her face turned towards the fire.