Then Robert came into the room. Oh! his darling face spoke, there was no need for words! The Duke, one could see, had been obdurate. “Well?” said Lady Merrenden. Robert came straight over to me, and took my face in his two hands: “Darling,” he said, “before everything I want you to know I love you better than anything else in the world, and nothing will make any difference,” and he kissed me deliberately before his aunt. His voice was so moved--and we all felt a slight lump in our throats, I know; then he stood in front of us, but he held my hand. “Torquilstone was horrid, I can see,” said Lady Merrenden. “What did he say, Robert--tell us everything? Evangeline would wish it too, I am sure, as well as I.” Robert looked very pale and stern, one can see how firm his jaw is in reality, and how steady his dear blue eyes. “I told him I loved Evangeline, whom I understood he had met yesterday, and that I intended to marry her----” “And he said?” asked Lady Merrenden, breathless. I only held tighter Robert’s hand. “He swore like a trooper, he thumped his glass down on the table and smashed it--a disgusting exhibition of temper--I was ashamed of him. Then he said, ‘Never, as long as he lived and could prevent it--that he had heard something of my infatuation, so as I am not given that way he had made inquiries, and found the family was most unsatisfactory.’ Then he had come here yesterday on purpose to see you--darling,” turning to me--“and that he had judged for himself. The girl was a ‘devilish beauty’ (his words not mine) with the naughtiest provoking eyes, and a mouth--No! I can’t say the rest, it makes me too mad!” and Robert’s eyes flashed. Lady Merrenden rose from her seat, and came and took my other hand. I felt as if I could not stand too tall and straight. “The long and short of it is, he has absolutely refused to have anything to do with the matter; says I need expect nothing further from him, and we have parted for good and all!” “Oh, Robert!” it was almost a cry from Lady Merrenden. Robert put his arms round me, and his face changed to radiance. “Well, I don’t care--what does it matter! A few places and thousands in the dim future--the loss of them is nothing to me if I have only my Evangeline now.” “But, Robert, dearest,” Lady Merrenden said, “you can’t possibly live without what he allows you, what have you of your own? About eighteen hundred a year, I suppose, and you know, darling boy, you are often in debt. Why he paid five thousand for you as lately as last Easter. Oh, what is to be done!” and she clasped her hands. I felt as if turned to stone. Was all this divine happiness going to slip from my grasp? Yes, it looked like it, for I could never drag Robert into poverty, and spoil his great future. “He can’t leave away Torquilstone, and those thousands of profitless acres,” Lady Merrenden went on, “but unfortunately the London property is at his disposition. Oh! I must go and talk to him!”