I placed them before him. He took up the pen; he arranged the paper; he was eager to begin.
After writing a few words, he stopped--reflected--tried again--stopped again--tore up the little that he had done--and began a new letter, ending in the same miserable result. It was impossible to witness his helplessness, to see how pitiably patient he was over his own incapacity, and to let the melancholy spectacle go on. I proposed to write the letter; authenticating it, of course, by his signature. When he allowed me to take the pen, he turned away his face, ashamed to let me see what he suffered. Was this the same man, whose great nature had so nobly asserted itself in the condemned cell? Poor mortality!
I had only to inform Mr. Dunboyne of his son’s conduct; repeating, in the plainest language that I could use, what Miss Jillgall had related to me. Arrived at the conclusion, I contrived to make Mr. Gracedieu express himself in these strong terms: “I protest against the marriage in justice to you, sir, as well as to myself. We can neither of us content to be accomplices in an act of domestic treason of the basest kind.”
In silence, the Minister read the letter, and attached his signature to it. In silence, he rose and took my arm. I asked if he wished to go to his room. He only replied by a sign. I offered to sit with him, and try to cheer him. Gratefully, he pressed my hand: gently, he put me back from the door. Crushed by the miserable discovery of the decay of his own faculties! What could I do? what could I say? Nothing!
Miss Jillgall was in the drawing-room. With the necessary explanations, I showed her the letter. She read it with breathless interest. “It terrifies one to think how much depends on old Mr. Dunboyne,” she said. “You know him. What sort of man is he?”
I could only assure her (after what I remembered of his letter to me) that he was a man whom we could depend upon.
Miss Jillgall possessed treasures of information to which I could lay no claim. Mr. Dunboyne, she told me, was a scholar, and a writer, and a rich man. His views on marriage were liberal in the extreme. Let his son find good principles, good temper, and good looks, in a wife, and he would promise to find the money.