Page:Orley Farm (Serial Volume 15).pdf/31

Rh 'But you may be sure of this, my dear; I shall be very discreet, and commit you to nothing. If he should choose to ask you any question, you will be at liberty to give him any answer that you may think fit.' But Madeline at once confessed to herself that no such liberty remained to her. If Mr. Graham should choose to ask her a certain question, it would be in her power to give him only one answer. Had he been kept away, had her father told her that such a marriage might not be, she would not have broken her heart. She had already told herself, that under such circumstances, she could live and still live contented. But now,—now if the siege were made, the town would have to capitulate at the first shot. Was it not an understood thing that the governor had been recommended by the king to give up the keys as soon as they were asked for?

'You will tell your mamma of this my dear,' said the judge, as they were entering their own gate.

'Yes,' said Madeline. But she felt that, in this matter, her father was more surely her friend than her mother. And indeed she could understand her mother's opposition to poor Felix, much better than her father's acquiescence.

'Do, my dear. What is anything to us in this world, if we are not all happy together? She thinks that you have become sad, and she must know that you are so no longer.'

'But I have not been sad, papa,' said Madeline, thinking with some pride of her past heroism.

When they reached the hall-door she had one more question to ask; but she could not look in her father's face as she asked.

'Papa, is that review you were speaking of here at Noningsby?'

'You will find it on my study table; but remember, Madeline, I don't above half go along with him.'

The judge went into his study before dinner, and found that the review had been taken.

had gone up to London, had had his interview with Mr. Round, and had failed. He had then returned home, and hardly a word on the subject had been spoken between him and Mrs. Orme. Indeed little or nothing was now said between them as to Lady Mason or the trial. What was the use of speaking on a subject that was in every way the cause of so much misery? He had made up his mind that it was no longer possible for him to