As a first step, he wrote boldly to John Ball. In this letter he reasserted the statement he had made to Lady Ball as to Miss Mackenzie’s engagement to himself, and added some circumstances which he had not mentioned to Lady Ball. He said, that having become engaged to that lady, he had, in consequence, given up his curacy at Littlebath, and otherwise so disarranged his circumstances, as to make it imperative upon him to take the steps which he was now taking. He had come up to London, expecting to find her anxious to receive him in Gower Street, and had then discovered that she had been taken away to the Cedars. He could not, he said, give any adequate description of his surprise, when, on arriving there, he heard from the mouth of his own Margaret that she was now engaged to her cousin. But if his surprise then had been great and terrible, how much greater and more terrible must it have been when, step by step, the story of that claim upon her fortune revealed itself to him! He pledged himself, in his letter, as a gentleman and as a Christian minister, to see the matter out. He would not allow Miss Mackenzie to be despoiled of her fortune and her hand,—both of which he had a right to regard as his own,—without making known to the public a transaction which he regarded as nefarious. Then there was a good deal of eloquent indignation the nature and purport of which the reader will probably understand.

Mr Ball did not at all like this letter. He had that strong feeling of disinclination to be brought before the public with reference to his private affairs, which is common to all Englishmen; and he specially had a dislike to this, seeing that there would be a question not only as to money, but also as to love. A gentleman does not like to be accused of a dishonest attempt to possess himself of a lady’s property; but, at the age of fifty, even that is almost better than one which charges him with such attempt against a lady’s heart. He knew that he was not dishonest, and therefore could endure the first. He was not quite sure that he was not, or might not become, ridiculous, and therefore feared the latter very greatly. He could not ignore the letter, and there was nothing for it but to show it to his lawyer. Unfortunately, he had told this lawyer, on the very day of Mr Maguire’s visit to the Cedars, that all was to be made smooth by his marriage with Miss Mackenzie; and now, with much misery and many inward groanings, he had to explain all this story of Mr Maguire. It was the more painful in that he had to admit that an offer had been made to the lady by the clergyman, and had not been rejected.

“You don’t think there was more than that?” asked the lawyer, having paved the way for his question with sundry apologetic flourishes.