"
"The very reason why I kept it from you--my dear boy. But Miss Amory
is not a convict's daughter, don't you see? Miss Amory is the daughter
of Lady Clavering, with fifty or sixty thousand pounds for a fortune;
and her father-in-law, a baronet and country gentleman, of high
reputation, approves of the match, and gives up his seat in Parliament
to his son-in-law. What can be more simple?"
"Is it true, sir?"
"Begad, yes, it is true, of course it's true. Amory's dead. I tell you
he _is_ dead. The first sign of life he shows, he is dead. He can't
appear. We have him at a dead-lock like the fellow in the play--the
Critic, hey?--devilish amusing play, that Critic. Monstrous witty man
Sheridan; and so was his son. By gad, sir, when I was at the Cape, I
remember--" The old gentleman's garrulity, and wish, to conduct Arthur
to the Cape, perhaps arose from a desire to avoid the subject which
was near est his nephew's heart; but Arthur broke out, interrupting
him, "If you had told me this tale sooner, I believe you would have
spared me and yourself a great deal of pain and disappointment; and I
should not have found myself tied to an engagement from which I can't,
in honor, recede.
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