"If you've called to plead for Mary," she said and her voice was short--"I had better tell you that I wash my hands of that affair!

I've finished with them--the whole family!"

"Jill?" ...

"Yes----" she caught him up. "Jill, _and_ Roddy--They might have guessed. They ought to have warned me long ago! It's their own fault--and I've done with them."

"Oh, no!" McTaggart's blue eyes were eloquent. "You don't _mean_ it?

You couldn't just now when they want you so." He saw a slight quiver cross her face. "And _I_ want you--all your help! We can't get on without it, you know--Jill and I..."

She gave a start at the coupling together of the names.

"I don't understand," she said drily.

"No?--I'm afraid I'm explaining myself rather badly. I thought you'd guess ... The fact is, Aunt Elizabeth," he smiled at her affectionately, "I'm hoping you'll let me become, you know, a _real_ nephew of yours, one day."

The little old lady gave a gasp. "I _knew_ it!" she cried triumphantly. "You and Jill?--Ha!" she laughed. "You can't deceive an old woman like me!"

"I don't want to!" McTaggart sprang up, his hand outstretched to meet her own, his face so radiant with happiness that her old heart softened at the sight.

"But I must have _your_ permission first. I don't care a hang what her mother says!--She's placed herself outside the affair. Gone off and left those two children..." he checked himself, his voice indignant.

"But you're her father's sister, you see--his favourite one. And we both think you've as good a right as any one ... to give her away."

He stopped abruptly.

"Give her away? _Jill_, you mean?" she stared at him, obviously amazed. "What are you talking about, young man? You're not going to marry her _to-morrow_?"

"No," he amended, "to-morrow week."

He laughed at her startled exclamation, and went on, still holding her hand--unconsciously abandoned to him--with subtle persuasion in his voice.

"I don't want you--exactly--to 'give her away.' In any sense!----" he laughed again--"but you simply _must_ come to the wedding. We've both of us set our hearts on that."

"I never heard such utter nonsense in all my life!" she protested stoutly--"and don't imagine I shall allow it!" But, as she looked at his resolute face, inwardly she commended his spirit.

"Of all the ridiculous notions..." she fumed; but McTaggart guessed she was wavering.

"Tell me, first, you're pleased about it? _Do_ say you think I'll make Jill happy?"

"Well----" she paused--"I'll admit you'll _try_! She's a bit of a handful--that young woman."

Her grey eyes began to twinkle. Jill, she thought, had found her master.

"Yes--I'm glad. Though I shan't hear..."

He checked the protest audaciously. Before she could gather his intention he had stooped and kissed her faded cheek.

"Thank you, Aunt Elizabeth. On Tuesday week I'll take another--In the vestry!"

He chuckled gaily.

"Well--I never...!" Miss Uniacke gasped. For once her sharp tongue was silenced. Her face was flushed and, helplessly, she straightened the crooked brown fringe.

"Now----" McTaggart sat down, uninvited, by her side ... "I think we ought to talk business and fix up a few plans. I've got the license--that's all right. And to-night I'm going down to Oxton. The Bishop is my friend, you know, and I want him to come and marry us.

Mrs. Uniacke's honeymoon--I mean Mrs. Somerfield----" her sister-in-law winced slightly and he went on hurriedly--"Well, she doesn't get back to Worthing till Wednesday. So, if you could manage to run down and stay with Jill until we're married ... You see my idea?" his face went red--"It would stop any silly talk, you know. But, perhaps, you could come to the lawyers first and fix up the settlements? I want to make that all square; for Jill's sake, you understand?"

Miss Uniacke caught him up sharply. "I hope you're not under the delusion that my niece has anything of her own?" Purposely she withheld from him the knowledge of the modest sum left the girl by her Father.

"My dear Aunt Elizabeth!" McTaggart looked taken aback. "I meant _my_ money, of course. I'd better tell you all about it."

He proceeded forthwith to enlighten her on the subject of his inheritance.

Miss Uniacke's gray eyes slowly widened with amazement.

"You mean to say," she said at last, "that Jill will be a marchioness?"

"Well, that's thrown in!" McTaggart laughed--"Won't she make a pretty one! I think she'll just love Siena--and Rome too--it's a ripping place! You'll have to come and stay with us. Oh, I forgot--about Roddy." He went on with his plans for the latter, his handsome face alight with pleasure. Miss Uniacke guessed in every word the depths of his love for the boy's sister.

"It's like a fairy tale!" she said.

"It is a fairy tale----" his voice was lowered now with a touch of awe.

"All true love is that, I think. It's outside this work-a-day world.

Something too fine to be measured--like a beautiful vision seen in a dream..."

He glanced up shyly at his listener and in her worn and serious face caught a look of longing, oddly pathetic, but full of genuine sympathy.

For a moment their thoughtful eyes met--the old, saddened ones, knowing life, and those of youth, bright with hope: met and wondered, across the gulf.

Then McTaggart broke the silence.

"I don't want Jill to know yet. About my inheritance, I mean. I want it to come as a huge surprise!--on our arrival in Siena. She knows I've got some property there--I fancy she thinks it's just a farm!--but I've always kept it rather dark from everybody. It's like this----" he fidgeted, under the gaze of her shrewd grey eyes, hunting for words.

"Although my mother was Italian I've always _felt_ an Englishman.

Really, deep down in myself, I'd sooner be English, any day. But, on the other hand, you see, I admit a certain responsibility. My mother was treated abominably"--a hard look came into his face--"just because she married my father! They practically cut her adrift.

"Now, by an odd stroke of luck, I have come into all that my mother lost. And I feel it's up to me to show that she was right, after all.

She married for love, and so shall I. An English wife ... my little Jill! But we'll have to live in Italy half the year--be Maramonte as well as McTaggart--not for ourselves but because I believe that _she_ would have wished it."

His eyes had a curious far away look. Then he seemed to come back to the present.

"All the same I've felt, somehow, that a foreign t.i.tle, over here, wouldn't do--rather sn.o.bbish..." He laughed with a shade of nervousness.

"Quite right." Miss Uniacke nodded. She liked the man more and more.

But, despite her careless att.i.tude toward the secret he shared with her, her old heart warmed at the thought of this splendid match for the girl she loved.

"You won't tell her? You'll keep it dark!"

"Of course--it's your affair, not mine."