...Lord Nosh stood upon the hearthrug of the library. Trained diplomat and statesman as he was, his stern aristocratic face was upside down with fury.
"Boy," he said, "you shall marry this girl or I disinherit you. You are no son of mine."
Young Lord Ronald, erect before him, flung back a glance as defiant as his own.
"I defy you," he said. "Henceforth you are no father of mine. I will get another. I wil marry none but the woman I love. This girl that we have never seen--"
"Fool," said the Earl, "would you throw aside our estate and name of a thousand years? The girl, I am told, is beautiful; her aunt is willing; they are French; pah! they understand such things in France."
"But your reason--"
"I give no reason," said the Earl. "Listen, Ronald, I give you one month. For that time you remain here. If at the end of it you refuse me, I cut you off with a shilling."
Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions.
As the door of the library closed upon Ronald, the Earl sank into a chair. His face changed. It was no longer that of the haughty nobleman, but of the hunted criminal. "He must marry the girl," he muttered. "Soon she will know all. Tutchemoff has escaped from Siberia. He knows and will tell. The whole of the mines pass to her, this property with it, and I - but enough."
He rose, walked to the sideboard, drained a dipper full of gin and bitters and again became a high-bred English gentleman...

Gertrude the Governess, Nonsense Novels by Stephen Leacock, 1911.