"He is going with you to-morrow simply because he has made you a promise, and does not choose to have it said of him that he broke his word even to save his own life. Is not that courage? It is not with him as it is with you, who have your heart in the matter, because you think of some great thing that you will do, so that your name may be remembered to future generations."
"It is not for that, Eva. I care not at all whether my name be remembered. It is for the good of many that I act."
"He believes in no good, but is willing to go because of his promise. Is it fair to keep him to such a promise under such circumstances?"
"I will hear nothing of the law. The law means you and your influences. Papa is to be sacrificed to the law to suit your pleasure. Papa is to be destroyed, not because the law wishes it, but to suit the taste of Mr Neverbend."
"Well--what else? You have got the idea into your head, and you will not drop it. And you have persuaded him because he is your friend. Oh, a most fatal friendship! He is to be sacrificed because, when thinking of other things, he did not care to differ with you." Then she paused, as though to see whether I might not yield to her words. And if the words of any one would have availed to make me yield, I think it would have been hers as now spoken. "Do you know what people will say of you, Mr Neverbend?" she continued.
"If I only knew how best I could tell you! Your son has asked me--to be his wife."
"I have long known that he has loved you well."
"But it can never be," she said, "if my father is to be carried away to this fearful place. People would say that you had hurried him off in order that Jack--"
"Would you believe it, Eva?" said I, with indignation.
"It does not matter what I would believe. Mr Grundle is saying it already, and is accusing me too. And Mr Exors, the lawyer, is spreading it about. It has become quite the common report in Gladstonopolis that Jack is to become at once the owner of Little Christchurch."
"Perish Little Christchurch!" I exclaimed. "My son would marry no man's daughter for his money."
"I do not believe it of Jack," she said, "for I know that he is generous and good. There! I do love him better than any one in the world. But as things are, I can never marry him if papa is to be shut up in that wretched City of the Dead."