“He can get both love and money,” answered Joan; “and it isn’t for himself that he wants the money—it is to save his family. He had an elder brother who brought them to ruin, and now he’s got to set them up again by taking the girl who holds the mortgages, and who is in love with him, as his wife—at least, I believe that’s the story, though he never told it me himself.” “A pretty kettle of fish, I am sure. Now look here, Joan, don’t you talk silly, but listen to me, who am older than you are and have seen more. It isn’t for me to blame you, but, whatever was the truth of it, you’ve done what isn’t right, and you know it. Well, it has pleased God to be kind to you and to show you a way out of a mess that most girls never get clear of. Yes, you can become an honest woman again, and have the man you love as a husband, which is more than you deserve perhaps. What I have to say is this: don’t you be a fool and cut your own throat. These money matters are all very well, but you have got nothing to do with them. You get married, Joan, and leave the rest to luck; it will come right in the end. If there’s one thing that’s more of a vanity than any other in this wide world, it is scheming and plotting about fortunes and estates and suchlike, and in nine cases out of ten the woman who goes sacrificing herself to put cash into her lover’s pocket or her own either for that matter does him no good in the long run, but just breaks her heart for nothing, and his too very likely. There, that’s my advice to you, Joan; and I tell you that if I thought that you would go on as you have begun and make this man a bad wife, I shouldn’t be the one to give it. But I don’t think that, dear. No; I believe that you would be as good as gold to him, and that he’d never regret marrying you, even though he is a baronet and you are what you are.” “Oh! indeed I would,” said Joan. “Don’t say ‘indeed I would,’ dear; say ‘indeed I shall,’ and mind you stick to it. And now I hear the nurse coming back, and it is time for me to go and see about your dinner. Don’t you fuss and make yourself ill again, or she won’t be able to go away to-morrow, you know. I shall just write to this gentleman and say that he can come and see you about next Friday; so mind, you’ve got to be well by then. Good-bye.” Weak as she was still from illness, when her first wild joy had passed a great bewilderment took possession of Joan.