"You can make her Lady Hampstead, and demand that she shall be received at Court. You can deck her with diamonds, and cause her to be seated high in honour according to your own rank. But could you induce your father's wife to smile on her?" In answer to this he was dumb. "Do you think she would be contented if your father's wife were to frown on her?"

"My father's wife is not everybody."

"She would necessarily be much to your wife. Take a week, my lord, or a month, and think upon it. She expects nothing from you yet, and it is still in your power to save her from unhappiness."

"I would make her happy, Mrs. Roden."

"Think about it;--think about it."

"And I would make myself happy also. You count my feelings as being nothing in the matter."

"Nothing as compared with hers. You see how plainly I deal with you.

Let me say that for a time your heart will be sore;--that you do in truth love this girl so as to feel that she is necessary to your happiness. Do you not know that if she were placed beyond your reach you would recover from that sting? The duties of the world would still be open to you. Being a man, you would still have before you many years for recovery before your youth had departed from you. Of course you would find some other woman, and be happy with her. For her, if she came to shipwreck in this venture, there would be no other chance."

"I would make this chance enough for her."

"So you think; but if you will look abroad you will see that the perils to her happiness which I have attempted to describe are not vain. I can say no more, my lord, but can only beg that you will take some little time to think of it before you put the thing out of your own reach. If she had once accepted your love I know that you would never go back."

"Never."

"Therefore think again while there is time." He slowly dragged himself up from his chair, and left her almost without a word at parting. She had persuaded him--to take another week. It was not that he doubted in the least his own purpose, but he did not know how to gainsay her as to this small request. In that frame of mind which is common to young men when they do not get all that they want, angry, disappointed, and foiled, he went down-stairs, and opened the front door,--and there on the very steps he met Marion Fay.

"Marion," he said, pouring all the tenderness of his heart into his voice.

"My lord?"

"Come in, Marion,--for one moment." Then she followed him into the little pa.s.sage, and there they stood. "I had come over to ask you how you are after our little party."

"I am quite well;--and you?"

"I have been away with my father, or I should have come sooner."

"Nay;--it was not necessary that you should trouble yourself."

"It is necessary;--it is necessary; or I should be troubled very much. I am troubled." She stood there looking down on the ground as though she were biding her time, but she did not speak to him. "She would not come with me," he said, pointing up the stairs on which Mrs. Roden was now standing. "She has told me that it is bad that I should come; but I will come one day soon." He was almost beside himself with love as he was speaking. The girl was so completely after his own heart as he stood there close to her, filled with her influences, that he was unable to restrain himself.

"Come up, Marion dear," said Mrs. Roden, speaking from the landing.

"It is hardly fair to keep Lord Hampstead standing in the pa.s.sage."

"It is most unfair," said Marion. "Good day, my lord."

"I will stand here till you come down to me, unless you will speak to me again. I will not be turned out while you are here. Marion, you are all the world to me. I love you with my whole, whole heart. I had come here, dear, to tell you so;--but she has delayed me. She made me promise that I would not come again for a week, as though weeks or years could change me? Say one word to me, Marion. One word shall suffice now, and then I will go. Marion, can you love me?"

"Come to me, Marion, come to me," said Mrs. Roden. "Do not answer him now."

"No," said Marion, looking up, and laying her hand gently on the sleeve of his coat. "I will not answer him now. It is too sudden. I must think of words to answer such a speech. Lord Hampstead, I will go to her now."

"But I shall hear from you."

"You shall come to me again, and I will tell you."

"To-morrow?"

"Nay; but give me a day or two. On Friday I will be ready with my answer."

"You will give me your hand, Marion." She gave it to him, and he covered it with kisses. "Only have this in your mind, fixed as fate, that no man ever loved a woman more truly than I love you. No man was ever more determined to carry out his purpose. I am in your hands.

Think if you cannot dare to trust yourself into mine." Then he left her, and went back to the "d.u.c.h.ess of Edinburgh," not thinking much of the eyes which might be looking at him.

CHAPTER III.

MARION'S VIEWS ABOUT MARRIAGE.

When Lord Hampstead shut the door behind him, Marion went slowly up the stairs to Mrs. Roden, who had returned to her drawing-room. When she entered, her friend was standing near the door, with anxiety plainly written on her face,--with almost more than anxiety. She took Marion by the hand and, kissing her, led her to the sofa. "I would have stopped him if I could," she said.

"Why should you have stopped him?"

"Such things should be considered more."

"He had made it too late for considering to be of service. I knew, I almost knew, that he would come."

"You did?"

"I can tell myself now that I did, though I could not say it even to myself before." There was a smile on her face as she spoke, and, though her colour was heightened, there was none of that peculiar flush which Mrs. Roden so greatly feared to see. Nor was there any special excitement in her manner. There was no look either of awe or of triumph. She seemed to take it as a matter of course, quite as much at least as any Lady Amaldina could have done, who might have been justified by her position in expecting that some young n.o.ble eldest son would fling himself at her feet.

"And are you ready with your answer?" Marion turned her eyes towards her friend, but made no immediate reply. "My darling girl,--for you in truth are very dear to me,--much thought should be given to such an appeal as that before any answer is made."

"I have thought."

"And are you ready?"

"I think so. Dear Mrs. Roden, do not look at me like that. If I do not say more to tell you immediately it is because I am not perhaps quite sure;--not sure, at any rate, of the reasons I may have to give. I will come to you to-morrow, and then I will tell you."

There was room then at any rate for hope! If the girl had not quite resolved to grasp at the high destiny offered to her, it was still her friend's duty to say something that might influence her.

"Marion, dear!"

"Say all that you think, Mrs. Roden. Surely you know that I know that whatever may come from you will come in love. I have no mother, and to whom can I go better than to you to fill a mother's place?"

"Dear Marion, it is thus I feel towards you. What I would say to you I would say to my own child. There are great differences in the ranks of men."

"I have felt that."

"And though I do in my honest belief think that the best and honestest of G.o.d's creatures are not always to be found among so-called n.o.bles, yet I think that a certain great respect should be paid to those whom chance has raised to high places."