Her mother had hitherto always been in his favor, and he had, in fact, been received almost as an Apollo in the house at Cheltenham.
"Florence," he said, "I must see you alone for a few minutes.

I know that your mother will trust you with me." This was spoken immediately on his arrival, and Mrs.Mountjoy at once left the room.

She had been taught to believe that it was her daughter's duty to marry her cousin; and though she knew that the captain had done much to embarrass the property, she thought that this would be the surest way to settle him.
The heir of Tretton Park was, in her estimation, so great a man that very much was to be endured at his hands.
The meeting between the two cousins was very long, and when Mrs.
Mountjoy at last returned unannounced to the room she found her daughter in tears.
"Oh, Florence, what is the matter ?" asked her mother.
The poor girl said nothing, but still continued to weep, while the captain stood by looking as black as a thunder-cloud.
"What is it, Mountjoy ?" said Mrs.Mountjoy, turning to him.
"I have told Florence some of my troubles," said he, "and they seemed to have changed her mind toward me." There was something in this which was detestable to Florence,--an unfairness, a dishonesty in putting off upon his trouble that absence of love which she had at last been driven by his vows to confess.

She knew that it was not because of his present trouble, which she understood to be terrible, but which she could not in truth comprehend.

He had blurted it all out roughly,--the story as told by his father of his mother's dishonor, of his own insignificance in the world, of the threatened loss of the property, of the heaviness of his debts,--and added his conviction that his father had invented it all, and was, in fact, a thorough rascal.