And I shall conscientiously adopt effectual measures to
prevent your ever again having an opportunity of endeavouring to destroy my
influence and authority over my ward and my child, by direct or insinuated
slander.
'Your defamed and injured kinsman,
SILAS RUTHYN.'
I was stunned; yet what could I plead against the blow that was to isolate
me? I wept aloud, with my hands clasped, looking on the marble face of the
old man.
Without seeming to hear, he folded and sealed his note, and then proceeded
to answer Lord Ilbury.
When that note was written, he placed it likewise before me, and I read it
also through. It simply referred him to Lady Knollys 'for an explanation
of the unhappy circumstances which compelled him to decline an invitation
which it would have made his niece and his daughter so happy to accept.'
'You see, my dear Maud, how frank I am with you,' he said, waving the open
note, which I had just read, slightly before he folded it. 'I think I may
ask you to reciprocate my candour.'
Dismissed from this interview, I ran to Milly, who burst into tears from
sheer disappointment, so we wept and wailed together.
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