“you are so much engaged you are quite a stranger to me,” said miss chressham. “forgive me for having requested your company.”

my lord answered smilingly.

“my time is yours; you must remember that it is you, not i, who have been from town.”

susannah raised rather weary eyes.

“compliments apart, have you half an hour to give me, rose?”

he glanced at the silver timepiece.

“i am due at carlisle house at ten; there is a new singer——”

“and miss trefusis will be there.”

the earl raised his eyebrows.

“perhaps—till then at least i am free.”

miss chressham leant back in her chair. though it was early spring a fire burnt between the brass and irons, and cast a red glow over the shining folds of her grey dress.

the earl, in gold and scarlet riding dress, sat easily on the brocade settee and looked, rather curiously, at his cousin.

“i have to speak of painful things,” said miss chressham; “but i can be silent no longer. i have been waiting——”

“for me?” asked my lord.

“for you!” susannah picked up a drawn-silk hand-screen and held it between her face and the fire; incidentally it concealed her from the earl’s observation.

“rose,” she said very gravely, “you have been free nine months, and everything goes on exactly the same.”

his handsome face was expressionless.

“why not, my dear?” he asked.

“do you not understand me?” she returned. “but no, it is i who do not understand and you who must explain.”

“you are wondering,” said my lord, swinging his glass, “about the money.”

“there shows no difference in the style of your living, of my lady agatha’s living, since the—the ruin of mr. hilton.”

“he is in bedlam,” said the earl irrelevantly. “did you know?”

miss chressham shuddered.

“yes, i heard—it is very terrible; was he utterly ruined?”

“faith, ’tis only i who keep him from the paupers.”

“i am glad you do so much.”

“i could do no less, she was my wife.”

“we will not speak of it,” said susannah in a low voice, “but of the future.” she dropped the hand-screen and faced her cousin. “rose, what are we all living on?”

“debts, maybe,” smiled my lord.

susannah frowned in a troubled way.

“you have never been sincere with me, and i think i have deserved some frankness; you were entangled before you flung up your post under pelham.”

my lord interrupted with an air of sudden weariness.

“there are always the jews, and in one way and another one may float. i have been lucky of late at play.”

“as you will,” answered miss chressham quietly. “my lady is content, but i cannot help—ah! well, i have no right to play the monitor.”

“you are the guardian angel of our house,” smiled my lord, and gave her a soft, half-amused look. “have you heard lately from marius?”

her face clouded.

“i do not care to hear you speak of him.”

“why not?”

“you well know why. you believe that of him i never can nor will believe.”

the earl shrugged his shoulders.

“a woman’s generous blindness, my dear.”

“a woman’s clearer vision,” she retorted hotly. “you are blind, rose, to have known marius all his life and still imagine he could miserably intrigue for your death; he appeared at the meeting, after your insult, out of pure honour.”

“he appeared as my second, against my will, and my pistol had been drawn,” returned the earl dryly. “also he had refused to fight me.”

“because i asked it of him, and for that i can never forgive myself,” said miss chressham bitterly.

my lord laughed.

“i think he was fond of you.”

miss chressham looked into the fire.

“i have not seen him since he threw up his commission,” she said thoughtfully; “nor may i see him again, but i shall believe in him always.”

“he is still in holland?” asked the earl lightly.

“yes”—susannah roused herself—“but it is not of him i wish to speak.”

she fixed her eyes searchingly on the easy rich figure of rose lyndwood and went faintly pale.

“you have heard that sir francis boyle is married?”

“yes”—he was still smiling—“to miss brett, a beauty and a fortune.”

susannah leant forward, resting her cheek in her hand, her elbow on the arm of the chair; her brow was anxious, and her gaze rested with painful attention on the earl’s calm countenance.

“when are you going to marry selina boyle?” she asked.

he gave her a quick look; she read nothing but surprise in his fair, fickle eyes.

“of all things i had not expected this,” he said, and laughed a little.

“you think i have no right to speak, but i am her friend, and i must ask how long will you keep her waiting?”

my lord slightly flushed.

“i am not betrothed to miss boyle.”

“oh, rose,” cried miss chressham, drawing a deep breath, “will you use forever this formality to me? she, selina, told me herself, and i—have i not been a faithful confidante?” she paused, collected herself and continued, “i heard today from bristol; she does not mention you; but she must be wondering, and why are you delaying? rose, you have been free nearly a year.”

“by gad, you put me in an awkward position,” said the earl. “on my honour i do not know what to say to you.”

he rose and leant against the top of the settee, looking at her curiously.

“why delay?” miss chressham spoke earnestly, almost passionately. “announce it, go down to bristol; neither decency nor honour demand any further tribute to the memory of that unhappy lady.”

“susannah,” he interrupted. “you speak under the influence of an error.”

“an error?” she echoed.

“yes, i do not intend to marry miss boyle.”

“rose!” the exclamation seemed wrung from her by sheer bitter surprise. she stared at him incredulously.

he coloured, deeply now, to his powdered side-curls.

“i do not know what impossible romance you have been building, susannah, but this you speak of i have never even contemplated.”

“you—you do not intend to marry selina?”

“you imagined i did? my dear, it would be the simplest folly.”

susannah rose and rested her hand against the mantelshelf.

“please put this clearly,” she said; “why would it be folly?”

he smiled.

“you yourself, my dear, have remarked the state of my fortunes—miss boyle is not wealthy.”

“money—again money!” cried miss chressham in horrified accents. “do you dare to consider money—after all that has passed?”

“it is a necessary evil,” said the earl.

“but you love her!” broke from susannah.

a pause followed. my lord took a half-turn across the room followed by his cousin’s bewildered, appealing eyes, then he turned and faced her. his demeanour was changed, his voice when he spoke was low and grave.

“you have mistaken me,” and he put his hand to his heart in some agitation. “i think you can never have known me; but it moves me that you should take this trouble in my affairs, and i can do no less than confess.”

“confess, and to me!” cried susannah.

“to no one else could i speak,” said the earl; “what is the use, even to you? but it is strange that you should have so misunderstood me.”

“i thought i knew you very well,” breathed susannah.

“not so well, my dear,” he returned half sadly. “i—i never loved this lady, it was a fair pretence, but no more; how could there be love when there was no knowledge? she was to me a faint, sweet figure who”—he shrugged his shoulders—“and i—why, she knew nothing of me but what i chose to show her. it was pleasant, a delicate episode; but to marry her!”

“you forget some incidents of this story,” said miss chressham with lowered eyes; “you let her think you cared—if marius and my lady had been willing, you averred, you would have married her—what of that?”

my lord laughed faintly.

“i could never have done it.”

“then your marriage was not for marius, for your mother, it was for yourself.”

“as this is my confession, i suppose you are right, susannah. i could never have done other than i did—am i the man for an idyll? it happened to be charming to imagine it.”

miss chressham raised her grave, dark eyes.

“and afterwards, when you dared to ask selina to refuse sir francis?”

“that was a matter of vanity,” confessed my lord, “and perhaps curiosity; i wanted to know. ah, well, i had a number of motives.”

miss chressham put her hand to her head.

“i think i understand, at last; indeed i see it very clearly. but there is something you do not see clearly—the position of selina boyle.”

the earl toyed with his glass.

“can i flatter myself that she would recall an incident that touched her so little? the whole thing was but a matter of sighs and smiles.”

susannah interrupted.

“i do not credit you with believing what you say; even if you do,” her voice strengthened, “i know that it is false. if you were well on the earth all the time, she was nevertheless in the clouds; if you found it a flattering diversion, she found it more.”

my lord made a restraining gesture.

“oh, but you must hear me!” continued susannah. “she was sincere; if you did not consider her so you must know it now.”

“you cannot answer for her,” said the earl, and again his natural pallor disappeared under a slow blush.

“i know,” answered his cousin. “you spoke and she believed; she accepted you on her own level, and you must act up to it, rose.”

the earl glanced at her under lowered lids.

“it would be no great honour to miss boyle,” he said gravely, “to make her my second wife. believe me, i respect and admire that lady too much to ever act with her the comedy my marriage must be.”

susannah clenched her hand impatiently on the mantelshelf.

“oh, you talk, talk!” she cried, “and meanwhile selina waits; do you suppose these sophistries occur to her, or if they do that they can comfort her in face of the fact that you do not write, you do not come, and she hears your name coupled with that of other women?”

“still you speak under a misconception,” said my lord. “i could never marry for love.”

“you would marry again for money?” she flashed.

“i have confessed,” he answered; “your sincerity has forced it from me. i do what comes naturally to me to do, that which everyone does—why not?”

“in other words you drift!” cried miss chressham, “as all the lyndwoods have drifted, to destruction; you find nothing good but idleness and paltry pleasure.”

“i have some conscience left,” interrupted the earl, “and in the matter of miss boyle.”

“this talk is but to cloak your own convenience,” replied susannah. “what are you going to do?”

“the obvious thing,” said my lord.

miss chressham flushed.

“serena trefusis has money; they are ambitious people; do you mean that?”

rose lyndwood laughed.

“you are a sweet moralist, my dear, and, by gad! i don’t deserve your interest.”

she broke in, pushing back the heavy fair hair from her face.

“i am not talking of myself,” she bit her lip in agitation, “but of selina boyle. i think you are going to behave dishonourably, rose.”

the earl was silent. the glow of the fire, showing more strongly in the darkening room, struck vividly on his red dress, and cast a warm colour over his half-averted face.

“she hath been very faithful to you,” said susannah in a low voice. “even had you not asked it of her she would never have married, for your sake, and she is a noble nature. ah, you should be proud; there are not many such as she.”

still my lord did not speak, but his beautiful mouth trembled a little.

“and she thinks you care,” continued miss chressham. “and if you do not, what has she for her devotion? she was the belle of two years ago. sir francis married the belle of this—all the town knew that he and you met because of her—all the town read that paragraph in the gazette, and none of this is anything to her, if you care; if not—” she moved from the mantelshelf, and sudden passion touched her voice, “it is hard for women who wait.”

the earl raised his head.

“she does not know me,” he said softly. “what can i do?”

“she must never know you,” returned susannah quickly.

“what am i to do?” repeated the earl.

“go to bristol,” said miss chressham. “see her, speak to her—by heaven, you cannot find it difficult to love her, or to feign love to any woman; you do not need me to tell you what to do. i have told you she is waiting, that is enough.”

my lord slightly smiled.

“money, of course, you scorn, my dear; but it is a thing not so easily ignored. i am entangled in debt.”

“you can do—you can do what marius does.”

“a fair prospect to offer miss boyle.”

“that is between you and her. go to her at least; put it to her, do not overlook her, pass her by——”

“you are a curious lady,” said my lord with a half-amused, half-wistful glance. “and now i have confessed myself a shallow, empty person i fear i have your scorn, but these things—position, money, and other fooleries—are facts.”

“it is also a fact that she is waiting,” flashed susannah.

“and one that perchance outweighs those others.” the earl spoke in a softer voice. “on my soul i have not thought of it in such a fashion.”

“you are too fickle.”

“i have told you what i am, like the rest or any other.”

miss chressham turned her eyes away.

“not quite like any other, rose, in so far that you will go to bristol.”

“ah, my dear, this is not the age of chivalry.”

“still, you will go to bristol?”

she put out her hand, caught hold of the mantelshelf, and turning, faced him.

“these are not things to speak of, it is getting late; i have to dress.”

their eyes met across the twilit room; as a background to each was the glimmer of rich furniture, the handsome painted walls, the shifting shadows cast by the candle-light.

“are you going?” she asked.