'You know not what you possess, and therefore know not what you would lose; thus I am anxious--more than ever--to lose no time in transferring you and your heritage to the care of a husband I can trust.' 'Meaning the inevitable Hew!' she exclaimed, with a little angry laugh. 'Precisely, girl; I am proud to have an inheritor of our own blood, to my family honours, which, but for him, would pass away. If my poor Piers had only lived----' 'I would to Heaven he had!' sighed Mary, with all her heart. 'You tell me, Mary, that when of age you will be the mistress of your own actions. True. You never talked to me in this way before,' he continued, raising his voice and starting to his feet; 'but I tell you, that if you dare to countenance that fellow Falconer----' 'Oh, uncle, don't break my heart by talking thus!' 'Stuff! hearts don't break, though bones do. Let there be no clandestine correspondence, still less any meetings; but I trust to your honour, Mary--I trust to your honour, child.' She blushed deeply, painfully, for she had an appointment with Cecil that very afternoon. She remained silent, and Sir Piers interpreted her silence his own way. He knew that they must inevitably meet at the ball given by the regiment, and for himself to be at that especial ball was, he deemed, a duty he owed to the old corps; so, as for the chances of Mary and Falconer meeting, he would ensure that it would only be as strangers in a crowded ball-room. 'Yes, Mary,' he resumed, 'I trust to your honour, that you will keep this fortune-hunter at a distance.' 'I do believe, uncle--nay, I am certain of it,' she said, in a pretty and coy, yet half-petulant manner, 'that Captain Falconer would marry me whether I had money or not. Oh how I wish I were without it!' 'Indeed!' said he with a cynical smile; 'for a commercial age, your ideas, my dear, are--to say the least of them--rather peculiar.' 'Now, you dear old pet, I wish you would say no more on this subject,' said Mary, glancing anxiously at a clock.' 'Why?' 'Because, grand-uncle, I don't want to marry anyone, and, any way, I will never commit the sin--for such it would be--of marrying one I do not, and never can love--there!' 'Meaning our Hew?' 'Yes, your Hew.' 'Don't be silly, Mary,' persisted the old man; 'you must and _shall_ marry Hew, and there is an end of it!' 'But I have given my promise,' began Mary, feeling weary and desperate. 'Promise, to Captain Falconer? The devil you have! Did he dare exact one?' 'Oh no, no.' 'How then?' 'It came about somehow,' said Mary, as her fitful colour came and went. 'Did you promise--the devil, I'll explode!--to--to--marry him?' asked the general with his back against the mantel-piece. 'No.' 'What the deuce then? 'To love him--and him only,' said Mary, piteously, softly, and in a low voice, ending in a little nervous laugh.