"For his own life. That is, mortgage its revenues." "But you don't, surely, _fear_ it will come to this?" she cried in agitation. "Selina, I hardly know what I fear. Robert is not my brother, and I could not--I had no right--to question too closely. Neither, if I had questioned, and--and heard the worst--do I see what I could have done. Matters have gone too far for any aid, any suggestion, that I could have given." "What would become of us? Poor mamma! Poor Alice! Oh, what a trouble!" "You, at least, can escape the trouble, Selina; you can let me take you out of it. My home is not the luxurious home you have been accustomed to here; but it will afford you every comfort--if you will only come to it. Oh, my love, why do you let me plead to you so long in vain!" Selina Dalrymple pouted her pretty red lips. Oscar loved her to folly. She did not discourage him; did not absolutely encourage him. She liked him very well, and she liked his homage, for she was one of the vainest girls living; but, as to marrying him?--that was another thing. Had he possessed the rent-roll of a duke, she would have had him tomorrow; his income was a small one, and she loved pomp and show. "Now, Oscar!" she remonstrated, putting him off as usual. "Is it a time to bring in that nonsense, when we are talking and thinking of poor Robert? And here come mamma and Alice, for that's Miss Upton's carriage bringing them. They said they should be home early." And now we have to go back some few hours. It is very inconvenient, as the world knows, to tell two portions of a story at one and the same time. Turning out of one of the handsomest houses in Grosvenor Square, in the bright sunshine of this same Friday afternoon in June, went Robert Dalrymple, his step spiritless, a look of perplexity and pain on his young and attractive face. He had been saying farewell to Mary Lynn, and he felt, in his despairing heart, that it must be for life. Just a hint he whispered to her of the worst--that he had been heedless and reckless, and was ruined; but, woman-like, fond and confiding, she had told him she never would believe it, and if it was so, there existed all the more reason for her clinging to him. Ah, if it only might be! If the prospect just suggested to him by that good man, Francis Grubb, might only be realized! If he could pull up at any cost, and enter upon a peaceful life! _If!_ None knew better than himself that there was no chance of it. All he had was gone--and, had not Mr. Grubb left it to his honour?