“And I can’t help being just as fond of you as if you were a woman of sense,” said he, with another sigh. “And the worst of it is, that loving you has reduced me to your own level. For I know that there isn’t any hope for me, and that all the same I shall go on hoping, so that, without any fault on your side or my side, you will be the bane of my life.” “Oh, Godwin, how can you say such dreadful things?” said the girl, with a scared face. “You will forget them, and everything else--as soon as Rees comes in,” said Godwin, bitterly. Before she could utter another protest, he had gone back into the house, leaving Deborah unhappy and self-reproachful. And yet those last words of his were true, as she knew. Lord St. Austell, who had been in town for the season, was expected to arrive at Llancader that day for a short stay, before joining his yacht for a long cruise. Rees had been so feverishly anxious to meet him that Deborah had become deeply interested as to the object of the interview. That Rees was not actuated merely by gratitude and affection she knew, as he had been lately in the habit of casting on the earl all the blame of his own idleness. The fact was that Amos Goodhare, having devoted himself to the study of Rees Pennant’s character, and especially of its weaknesses, had managed by degrees to get such a hold upon him, and to use it in such a diabolical manner, that the lad’s good impulses were being gradually choked and the evil encouraged, while even the loving women of his own household were unable to trace the true source of the change, the effects of which were plain to one at least of them. Swallowing the bait which the cunning Goodhare held out to his vanity, he persistently avoided Deborah, for whom he had a natural inclination, and hung about Marion, whose unabashed adoration at heart rather disgusted than attracted him. Why should he not become the earl’s son-in-law, as the librarian, by insinuation rather than by direct speech, so constantly suggested? Lord St. Austell had no sons, and had never shown for any man, young or old, so great a partiality as he constantly did for him. He was handsome, brilliant, and more like the ideal conception of what a nobleman’s son ought to be than any eldest son in the whole aristocracy. Rees knew this, and felt more than a modest confidence in the fact. He even began to think that in the earl’s constant indulgence, which had indeed greatly increased the lad’s aversion from the thought of serious work, he saw a long-fixed determination to provide for his future in some brilliant manner.