“Tell him that I appreciate his noble contempt for money, his readiness to shed the sunshine of his prosperity upon so remote an outcast as myself; but tell him also that I would rather starve to death, slowly in this room, than I would accept the price of a loaf of bread from his hands. Do not hesitate to tell him this, in the plainest form of speech. It is only right that he should know the exact measure of my feelings towards him.” After this Theodore could only bow to her decision and leave her. “Lord Cheriton is my cousin, and a man whom I have every reason to regard with affection and respect,” he began. She interrupted him sharply. “He has never denied the cousinship, never treated you as the dirt under his feet—never looked down upon you from the altitude of his grandeur, with insufferable patronage——” “Never. He has been most unaffectedly my friend, ever since I can remember.” “Then you are right to think well of him—but you must let me have my opinion in peace, even although you are of his blood and I am——nothing to him. Good-bye. Forgive me if I have been ungracious and ungrateful. I have no doubt you meant well by me—only I would so much rather be let alone. It did me no good to see Lady Cheriton yesterday. My heart was tortured by the memories her face recalled.” She gave him her hand, the thin white hand, with taper fingers worn by constant work. It was a very pretty hand, and it lay in his strong grasp to-day for the first time, so reserved had been her former greetings and farewells. He looked at the delicate hand for a moment or two before he let it go, and from the hand upwards to the fair, finely-cut face, and the large, dark grey eyes. That look of his startled her, the hollow cheeks flushed, and the eyelids fell beneath his steady gaze. “Good-bye, Mercy,” he said, gently, “let me call you Mercy, for the sake of the link between us—the link of common recollections, and the sad secrets of the past.” “Call me what you like. It is not very probable we shall meet often.” “You are very stubborn, cruel to yourself, and more cruel to those who want to help you. Good-bye.” “Good-bye,” she echoed, almost in a whisper. He went out into the shabby street haunted by those sad uplifted eyes, and the hollow cheeks faintly flushed with delicate bloom. How lovely she must have been in her dawning womanhood, and how closely she must have kept at home in the cottage by the west gate, seeing that he who had been so frequent a guest at Cheriton had never once met her there! He was not satisfied to submit to this total failure of his mission without one further effort. He went from Hercules Buildings to Wedgewood Street, and saw his admirable Sarah Newton, into whose attentive ear he poured the story of Mercy’s obstinacy.