--that without her I should be the most miserable
fellow alive--to hear you withdraw every objection and take my darling
to your arms as your daughter."

She sighed heavily as she listened.

"A wilful man must have his way. You are, as you told me yesterday,
your own master, free to do as you please. To Miss Darrell personally
I have no objection; she is beautiful, well-bred, and, I believe, a
noble girl. Her poverty and obscure birth _are_ drawbacks in my eyes,
but, since they are not so in yours, I will allude to them no more.
The objections I made yesterday to your marriage I would have made
had your bride been a duke's daughter. I had hoped--it was an absurd
--that you would not think of marriage for many years to come,
perhaps not at all."

"But, Aunt Helena--"

"Do I not say it was an absurd ? The fact is, Victor, I have been
a coward--a nervous, wretched coward from first to last. I shut my
eyes to the truth. I feared you might fall in wordnetdesire with this girl, but
I put the wordnetfear away from me. The time has come when