"No; but I am over fifty--and my idea is that, at fifty, one is really old." "Nothing of the kind!" she said, with great energy. "Some of the finest men I have known were only in the prime of life then. If you were seventy, you might think of speaking as you do. Sir Oswald," she asked, abruptly, looking keenly at his face, "why have you never married?" He smiled, but a flush darkened the fine old face. "I was in love once," he replied, simply, "and only once. The lady was young and fair. She loved me in return. But a few weeks before our marriage she was suddenly taken ill and died. I have never even thought of replacing her." "How sad! What sort of a lady was she, Sir Oswald--this fair young love of yours?" "Strange to say, in face, figure, and manner she somewhat resembled your lovely young niece, Lady Hampton. She had the same quiet, graceful manner, the same polished grace--so different from----" "From Miss Darrell," supplied the lady, promptly. "How that unfortunate girl must jar upon you!" "She does; but there are times when I have hopes of her. We are talking like old friends now, Lady Hampton. I may tell you that I think there is one and only one thing that can redeem my niece, and that is love. Love works wonders sometimes, and I have hopes that it may do so in her case. A grand master-passion such as controls the Darrells when they love at all--that would redeem her. It would soften that fierce pride and hauteur, it would bring her to the ordinary level of womanhood; it would cure her of many of the fantastic ideas that seem to have taken possession of her; it would make her--what she certainly is not now--a gentlewoman." "Do you think so?" queried Lady Hampton, doubtfully. "I am sure of it. When I look at that grand face of hers, often so defiant, I think to myself that she may be redeemed by love." "And if this grand master-passion does not come to her--if she cares for some one only after the ordinary fashion of women--what then?" He threw up his hands with a gesture indicative of despair. "Or," continued Lady Hampton--"pray pardon me for suggesting such a thing, Sir Oswald, but people of the world, like you and myself, know what odd things are likely at any time to happen--supposing that she should marry some commonplace lover, after a commonplace fashion, and that then the master-passion should find her out, what would be the fate of Darrell Court?" "I cannot tell," replied Sir Oswald, despairingly. "With a person, especially a young girl, of her self-willed, original, independent nature, one is never safe. How thankful I am that my niece is so sweet and so womanly!" Sir Oswald sat for some little time in silence. He looked on this fair ancestral home of his, with its noble woods and magnificent gardens. What indeed would become of it if it fell into the ill-disciplined hands of an ill-disciplined girl--unless, indeed, she were subject to the control of a wise husband?