All
the world knows of that."
"Then--though I do not in the least defend or excuse you--your breaking
with Lady Maude may be more pardonable. They are poor, are they not, this
Dowager Kirton and Lady Maude?"
"Poor as Job. Hard up, I think."
"Then they are angling for the broad lands of Hartledon. I see it all.
You have been a victim to fortune-hunting."
"There you are wrong, Carr. I can't answer for the dowager one way or the
other; but Maude is the most disinterested--"
"Of course: girls on the look-out for establishments always are. Have it
as you like."
He spoke in tones of ridicule; and Hartledon jumped off the stile and led
the way home.
That Lord Hartledon had got himself into a very serious predicament, Mr.
Carr plainly saw. His good nature, his sensitive regard for the feelings
of others, rendering it so impossible for him to say no, and above all
his vacillating disposition, were his paramount characteristics still: in
a degree they ever would be. Easily led as ever, he was as a very reed
in the hands of the crafty old woman of the world, located with him. She
had determined that he should become the husband of her daughter; and was
as certain of accomplishing her end as if she had foreseen the future.
Lord Hartledon himself afterwards, in his bitter repentance, said, over
and over again, that circumstances were against him; and they certainly
were so, as you will find.
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