"He hinted to me that he should call tomorrow to speak to me about you. Charlotte, it will be of no use: I cannot let you marry Mr. Carleton." "Please not to call him by that name," was the quiet rejoinder. "Mr. St. John, then--what does it matter? I should not like you to marry him. Has he really asked you to be his wife?" "Yes." "It must have been very sudden!" "Not so. I think we have understood each other for some little time past." "Then he has been in the habit of coming to the cottage?" "Oh yes." Mrs. Darling, who had raised herself in some commotion as she asked the last question, sank back again, and a look of mortification, of mental trouble, settled on her face. The carriage was approaching their door ere she spoke again, her tones betraying an agitation that was ill suppressed. "I cannot spare you, Charlotte! Charlotte, my darling, I cannot spare you! How often have I hoped, and urged, and prayed that you would never leave me--that you would be the one to stay and cheer my old age!" Charlotte shook her head with a smile. Had her mother been less agitated, less evidently in earnest, she might have enlarged on the unreasonableness of such a wish. As it was, she only answered playfully, that her mother need not think of old age these twenty years. "Are you marrying him for his money--his position?" resumed Mrs. Darling. "I am tired, mamma; I wish you wouldn't question me. Really I can't exactly particularize why I am marrying him." "_You_ a second wife! Have you reflected, Charlotte, that Caroline Carleton was his first choice; that there's already an heir to Alnwick who will inherit all; that George St. John has hardly a shilling beyond his entailed estates----" "Don't mamma!" was Charlotte's interruption, and her brow had contracted as if in pain. "It is quite useless your saying this. I should marry George St. John, though I knew that I must beg my bread afterwards from door to door." A moan, as of one in sorrow too great for utterance, broke from the lips of Mrs. Darling, and she sank back in the carriage and clasped her hands in pain. CHAPTER III. THE UNEXPLAINED REASON. Not a word was spoken by either mother or daughter as they entered their home. The little French clock in the drawing-room pointed to eleven--for the festivities at the Hall had been prolonged into evening--and Charlotte, perhaps afraid of further contention, said good night, and went up at once to her chamber. Mrs. Darling threw off her cloak and bonnet and began to pace the room. It was rather a habit of hers when disturbed or vexed. Never had she been so disturbed as now. Her ordinary crosses had been but light ones, which she scolded or talked away; _this_ seemed to be too deep, too real, for any talking.