'No,' he said; 'the pearls must remain hers unless she can come with
them; or if not, as is most like, we shall be the last of the
Ribaumonts--and she may do as she will with them.'
'You have no doubts, Eustace?' I cried. 'You care not for her wealth,
and as to her face, a year will make it as fair and sweet as ever.'
'As sweet in my eyes, assuredly!' he said. But he went on to say that
her very haste in this matter was a token that she meant to have no
more to do with him, and that no one could wish her to give up her
wealth and prosperity to accept a poor broken cavalier, health and
wealth alike gone.
I would have argued cheeringly, but he made me understand that his
own Dorset estates, which Harry Merrycourt had redeemed for him
before, had been absolutely forfeited by his share in Montrose's
expedition. The Commonwealth had in a manner condoned what had been
done in the service of King Charles, but it regarded as treason the
espousing the cause of his son; and it was possible that the charge
on the Wardour estates might be refused to Millicent should she unite
herself with one who was esteemed a rebel.
My mother's jointure had been charged on the Ribaumont estate, and if
Eustace failed to gain the suit which had been lingering on so long,
there would hardly be enough rents to pay this to her, leaving almost
nothing for him. Nor, indeed, was it in my power to do much for
their assistance, since my situation was not what it would have been
if my dear husband had lived to become Marquis de Nidemerle.
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