“No, it’s past mending,” returned Leicester in an accent of deep dejection. He paused, then turning to Lewis he resumed almost fiercely: “The tale is soon told, if you want to hear it. I met that girl--Laura Peyton, I mean--in town about a year ago; in fact--for my affairs are no secret--every fool knows that I am a beggar, or thereabouts. I was introduced to her because she was a great heiress, and dangled after her through the whole of a London season for the sake of her three per cents. Well, last autumn I met her again down in Scotland; we were staying together for three weeks in the same house. Of course we saw a good deal of each other, and I soon found I liked her better for herself than I had ever done for her money; but somehow, as soon as this feeling arose, I lost all nerve, and could not get on a bit. The idea of the meanness of marrying a woman for the sake of her fortune haunted me day and night, and the more I cared for her the less was I able to show it. My cousin Annie perceived what was going on, it seems, and without saying a word to me of her intention, struck up a friendship with Laura, and invited her here; and somehow--the thing’s very absurd in a man like myself, who has seen everything and done everything, and found out what humbug it all is--but the fact of the matter is, that I’m just as foolishly and romantically and deeply in love with that girl as any raw boy of seventeen could be; and I don’t believe she cares one _sous_ about me in return. She thinks, as she has a good right to do, that I am hunting her for her money, like the rest of them, I dare say; and--stop a minute,” he continued, seeing Lewis was about to speak--“you have not heard the worst yet: because all I’ve told you was not enough, that conceited ass, De Grandeville, must needs come and consult me this morning as to whether Miss Peyton was worthy of being honoured with his hand, hinting pretty plainly that he did not anticipate much difficulty on the lady’s part; and by Jove, from the way in which she is going on with him this evening, I believe that for once he wasn’t lying: then that mad-headed Mary Goodwood coming and bothering with her confounded ‘Charley’ this and ‘Charley’ that, and her absurd plan of monopolising one--of course she means no harm; she has known me from a boy, and it’s her way; besides, she really is attached to old Goodwood. But how is Laura Peyton to know all that?” “Why, rouse up, and go and tell her yourself, to be sure,” replied Lewis. “No, not I!” returned Leicester moodily. “I’ll have no more trouble about it. I’ll leave this house to-morrow morning, and be off to Baden, or Naples, or Timbuctoo, or some place where there are no women, if such a Paradise exists--and she may marry De Grandeville, or whom she pleases, for me. You see, it would be different if she cared at all for me, but to worry one’s heart out about a girl who does not even like one----”