Shall I stop here, and having given you
this warning, leave it to be fulfilled; or shall I go on?'
'You will go on, sir,' she answered, 'and speak more plainly yet, in
justice both to him and me.'
'My dear girl,' said Mr Chester, bending over her more affectionately
still; 'whom I would call my daughter, but the Fates forbid, Edward
seeks to break with you upon a false and most unwarrantable pretence. I
have it on his own showing; in his own hand. Forgive me, if I have had
a watch upon his conduct; I am his father; I had a regard for your peace
and his honour, and no better resource was left me. There lies on his
desk at this present moment, ready for transmission to you, a letter,
in which he tells you that our poverty--our poverty; his and mine, Miss
Haredale--forbids him to pursue his claim upon your hand; in which he
offers, voluntarily proposes, to free you from your pledge; and talks
magnanimously (men do so, very commonly, in such cases) of being in
time more worthy of your regard--and so forth. A letter, to be plain, in
which he not only jilts you--pardon the word; I would summon to your
aid your pride and dignity--not only jilts you, I fear, in favour of the
object whose slighting treatment first inspired his brief passion for
yourself and gave it birth in wounded vanity, but affects to make a
merit and a virtue of the act.
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