The murder, however, had to come out, and Theobald and
his intended, perhaps imprudently, resolved on making a clean breast
of it at once. He wrote what he and Christina, who helped him to draft
the letter, thought to be everything that was filial, and expressed
himself as anxious to be married with the least possible delay. He
could not help saying this, as Christina was at his shoulder, and he
knew it was safe, for his father might be trusted not to help him.
He wound up by asking his father to use any influence that might be at
his command to help him to get a living, inasmuch as it might be years
before a college living fell vacant, and he saw no other chance of
being able to marry, for neither he nor his intended had any money
except Theobald's fellowship, which would, of course, lapse on his
taking a wife.
Any step of Theobald's was sure to be objectionable in his father's
eyes, but that at three-and-twenty he should want to marry a penniless
girl who was four years older than himself, afforded a golden
opportunity which the old gentleman- for so I may now call him, as
he was at least sixty- embraced with characteristic eagerness.
"The ineffable folly," he wrote, on receiving his son's letter, "of
your fancied passion for Miss Allaby fills me with the gravest
apprehensions.
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