" Lady Laura did not know
what to say to this, for in truth Lord Chiltern was not fond of
staying at the houses of persons whom the Earl would have called
decent.
General Effingham, the father of Violet, and Lord Brentford had been
the closest and dearest of friends. They had been young men in the
same regiment, and through life each had confided in the other. When
the General's only son, then a youth of seventeen, was killed in
one of our grand New Zealand wars, the bereaved father and the Earl
had been together for a month in their sorrow. At that time Lord
Chiltern's career had still been open to hope,--and the one man had
contrasted his lot with the other. General Effingham lived long
enough to hear the Earl declare that his lot was the happier of the
two. Now the General was dead, and Violet, the daughter of a second
wife, was all that was left of the Effinghams. This second wife had
been a Miss Plummer, a lady from the city with much money, whose
sister had married Lord Baldock. Violet in this way had fallen to the
care of the Baldock people, and not into the hands of her father's
friends. But, as the reader will have surmised, she had ideas of her
own of emancipating herself from Baldock thraldom.
Twice before that last terrible affair at Newmarket, before the
quarrel between the father and the son had been complete, Lord
Brentford had said a word to his daughter,--merely a word,--of his
son in connection with Miss Effingham.
Pages:
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164