"Because I was only a poor girl, and he was a gentleman--the only son of a rich widow, and his mother would never have forgiven him for such a marriage. I knew nothing of that when he asked me to be his wife. I only knew that we loved each other truly and dearly. But just before the day that was to have been our wedding-day his mother came to me, and told me that if I persisted in marrying him I should be the bane of his life. It would be social extinction for him to marry me. Social extinction! I remember those words, though I hardly knew then what they meant. I was not eighteen, Allan, and I knew less of the world than many children of eight. But I did not give up my happiness without a struggle. There was strong persuasion brought to bear upon me; and at last I yielded--for his sake." "And blighted his life!" exclaimed Allan. "My mother is the best of women, and the best and kindest of wives; but I have always known that my father's marriage was a loveless marriage. Well," he went on, recovering himself quickly, apprehensive lest he should lower his mother's dignity by revealing too much, "you acted generously, and no doubt for the best, in making that sacrifice, and all has worked round well. You married a good man, and secured a position of more importance than my father's smaller means could have given you." "Position! means!" she repeated, in bitterest scorn. "Oh, Allan, don't think so poorly of me as to suppose that it was Mr. Wornock's wealth which attracted me. I married him because he was kind and sympathetic and good to me in my loneliness--a pupil at a German conservatoire, living with stony-hearted people, who only cared for me to the extent of the money that was paid for my board and lodging, and who were always saying hard things to me because they had agreed to take me so cheaply--too cheaply, they said. I used to feel as if I were cheating them when I sat at their wretched meals, and I was thankful that I had a wretched appetite." "You were cruelly used, dear Mrs. Wornock. I can just remember my grandmother, and I know she was a hard woman. She had no right to interfere with her son's disposal of his life." "No, she had no right. If I had known even as much of the world as I know now, when Miss Marjorum--Mrs. Beresford's messenger--came to me, I would have acted differently. I know now that a gentleman need not be ashamed of marrying a penniless girl if there is nothing against her but her poverty; but then I believed what Miss Marjorum told me--believed that I should blight the life of the man who loved me with such generous self-sacrificing love. Why should he alone be generous, and I selfish and indifferent to his welfare?" "But how did he suffer you to sacrifice yourself at his mother's bidding?"