"Only one, and that is insuperable! Understand me, I forbid it once and for all! In every particular without hope of change—I forbid it!"
"As you must see it is a matter which affects the happiness of my whole life, I feel sure you will be good enough to tell me why?"
"I must decline any discussion on the matter at all. You have my answer, I forbid it!"
"This is to be final, then. I am to understand that you are not to be brought to change your mind by any actions of mine?"
"No, sir, I am not! What I have said is irrevocable. The idea is not to be thought of for a moment. Your conduct towards my daughter on board this ship has been very distasteful to me. I have the honour to wish you a very good evening."
"Stay, Mr. Wetherell," I said as he turned to go. "You have been kind enough to favour me with your views. Now I will give you mine. Your daughter loves me. I am an honest and an industrious man, and I love her with my whole heart and soul. I tell you now, and though you decline to treat me with proper fairness, I give you warning, I intend to marry her if she will still have me—with your consent or without it!"
"You are insolent, sir."
"I assure you I have no desire to be. I endeavour to remember that you are her father, though I must own you lack her sense of what is fair and right."
"I will not discuss the question any further with you. You know my absolute decision. Good-night!"
"Good-night!"
With anger and happiness struggling in my breast for the mastery, I paced that deck for hours. My heart swelled with joy at the knowledge that my darling loved me, but it sank like lead when I considered the difficulties that threatened us if her father persisted in his present determination. At last, just as eight bells was striking (twelve o'clock), I went below to my cabin. My fellow-passenger was fast asleep—a fact that I was grateful for when I discovered propped against my bottle-rack a tiny envelope with my name inscribed upon it. Tearing it open I read the following:—
"My own Dearest,
"My father has just informed me of his interview with you. I cannot understand it or ascribe a reason for it. But whatever happens, remember that I will be your wife, and the wife of no other.
"May God bless and keep you always.
"Your own,
"Phyllis.
"P.S.—You must let me know your address in London."
With such a letter under my pillow, can it be doubted that my dreams were good? How little I guessed the troubles to which this introduction was destined to be the prelude!
CHAPTER II. MY FIRST EXPERIENCE IN LONDON.
Now I come to think the matter out, I don't know that I could give you any definite idea of what my first impressions of London were. One thing at least is certain, I'd never had experience of anything approaching such a city before, and, between ourselves, I can't say that I ever want to again. The constant rush and roar of traffic, the crowds of people jostling each other on the pavements, the happiness and the misery, the riches and the poverty, all mixed up together in one jumble, like good and bad fruit in a basket, fairly took my breath away; and when I went down, that first afternoon, and saw the Park in all its summer glory, my amazement can be better imagined than described.
I could have watched the carriages, horsemen, and promenaders for hours on end without any sense of weariness. And when a bystander, seeing that I was a stranger, took compassion upon my ignorance and condescended to point out to me the various celebrities, my pleasure was complete. There certainly is no place like London for show and glitter, I'll grant you that; but all the same I'd no more think of taking up my permanent abode in it than I'd try to cross the Atlantic in a Malay sampan.
Having before I left Sydney been recommended to a quiet hotel in a neighbourhood of the Strand, convenient both for sight-seeing and my business, I had my luggage conveyed thither, and prepared to make myself comfortable for a time. Every day I waited eagerly for a letter from my sweetheart, but its non-arrival convinced me that they had not yet arrived in London. As it turned out later, they had delayed their departure from Naples for two days, and had spent another three in Florence, two in Rome, and a day and a half in Paris.
But one morning my faithful watch over the letter rack, which was already becoming a standing joke in the hotel, was rewarded. An envelope bearing an English stamp and postmark, and addressed in a handwriting that was as familiar to me as my own, stared me in the face. To take it out and break the seal was the work of a moment. It was only a matter of a few lines, but it brought me news that raised me to the seventh heaven of delight.
They had arrived in London the previous afternoon, were staying at the Hôtel Métropole, would leave town for the country at the end of the week, but in the meantime, if I wished to see her, my sweetheart would be in the entrance hall of the British Museum the following morning at eleven o'clock.
How I conducted myself in the interval between my receipt of the letter and the time of the appointment, I have not the least remembrance; I only know that half-past ten, on the following morning, found me pacing up and down the street before that venerable pile, scanning with eager eyes every conveyance that approached me from the right or left. The minutes seemed to drag by with a slowness I had never before observed in them, but at length the time arrived.
A kindly church clock in the neighbourhood struck the hour, and others all round it immediately took up the tale. Before the last stroke had died away a hansom turned towards the gates from Bury Street, and in it, looking the picture of health and dainty beauty, sat the girl who, I had good reason to know, was more than all the world to me. To attract her attention and signal to the driver to pull up was the work of a second, and a minute later I had helped her to alight, and we were strolling together across the square towards the building.
"Ah, Dick," she said, with a roguish smile, in answer to a question of mine, "you don't know what trouble I had to get away this morning. Papa had a dozen places he wished me to go to with him. But when I told him I had some very important business of my own to attend to before I could go calling with him, he was kind enough to let me off."
"I'll be bound he thought you meant business with a dressmaker," I replied laughing, determined to show her that I was not unversed in the ways of women.
"I'm afraid that he did," she answered blushing, "and for that very reason alone I feel horribly guilty. But my heart told me I must see you at once, whatever happened."
Could any man desire a prettier speech than that? If so, I was not that man. We were inside the building by this time, ascending the great staircase. A number of pretty well-dressed girls were to be seen here and there about the rooms and corridors, but not one who could in any way compare with the fair Australian by my side—at least, not to my thinking. As we entered the long room at the top of the stairs, I thought it a good opportunity to ask the question I had been longing to put to her.
"Phyllis, my sweetheart," I said, with almost a tremor in my voice, "it is a fortnight now since I spoke to you. You have had plenty of time to consider our position. Have you regretted giving me your love?"
We came to a standstill, and leant over a case together, but what it contained I'm sure I haven't the very vaguest idea.
She looked up into my face with a sweet smile.
"Not for one single instant, Dick! Having once given you my love, is it likely I should want it back again?"
"I don't know. Somehow I can't discover sufficient reason