She might still have said yes. She felt that enough of speech was left to her for so small an effort,--and she knew that if she did so the agony of the moment would pass away from her. With that one word spoken her mother would be kind to her, and would wait upon her; would bring her tea, and would sit by her bedside, and caress her. But she too was a Lovel, and she was, moreover, the daughter of her who once had been Josephine Murray. "I cannot say that, mamma," she said, "because I have promised." Her mother dashed from the room, and she was left alone upon the bed. CHAPTER XXI. DANIEL AND THE LAWYER. It has been said that the Countess, when she sent her daughter down to Yoxham, laid her plans with the conviction that the associations to which the girl would be subjected among the Lovels would fill her heart and mind with a new-born craving for the kind of life which she would find in the rector's family;--and she had been right. Daniel Thwaite also had known that it would be so. He had been quite alive to the fact that he and his conversation would be abased, and that his power, both of pleasing and of governing, would be lessened, by this new contact. But, had he been able to hinder her going, he would not have done so. None of those who were now interested in his conduct knew aught of the character of this man. Sir William Patterson had given him credit for some honesty, but even he had not perceived,--had had no opportunity of perceiving,--the staunch uprightness which was as it were a backbone to the man in all his doings. He was ambitious, discontented, sullen, and tyrannical. He hated the domination of others, but was prone to domineer himself. He suspected evil of all above him in rank, and the millennium to which he looked forward was to be produced by the gradual extirpation of all social distinctions. Gentlemen, so called, were to him as savages, which had to be cleared away in order that that perfection might come at last which the course of nature was to produce in obedience to the ordinances of the Creator. But he was a man who reverenced all laws,--and a law, if recognised as a law, was a law to him whether enforced by a penalty, or simply exigent of obedience from his conscience. This girl had been thrown in his way, and he had first pitied and then loved her from his childhood. She had been injured by the fiendish malice of her own father,--and that father had been an Earl. He had been strong in fighting for the rights of the mother,--not because it had been the mother's right to be a Countess,--but in opposition to the Earl. At first,--indeed throughout all these years of conflict, except the last year,--there had been a question, not of money, but of right. The wife was entitled to due support,--to what measure of support Daniel had never known or inquired; but the daughter had been entitled to nothing. The Earl, had he made his will before he was mad,--or, more probably, had