Maurice had left The Place the morning after his engagement. He had had time to have an interview with his little _fiancée_, who seemed surprised that he wanted it in private, and who, to his great relief, insisted on making very cool adieux to him in the public hall, where everyone was passing to and fro, and where Mr. Gower was making a nuisance of himself by playing ball against the library door. Naturally it was impossible to have an affecting parting there. Marian had not come down to breakfast. And Sir Maurice was conscious of a passionate sense of relief. She had heard. He knew--he felt that! His mother would not spare her; and even if she had not cared as _he_ had cared, still, unless she was the greatest fiend on earth, she must have had some small love for him--how _terribly_ small he knows! He assures himself of that all day long in the living torture he is enduring, as if by it he can reconcile himself to his marriage with this child, whose money is so hateful, and whose presence is such a bore. There are a few things, however, always to be thankful for. Tita, in the frankest fashion in all their interviews, has told him that she doesn't care a fig about him, that she was marrying him _only_ to escape from Uncle George! All their interviews have been but few. Sir Maurice had run down from here, and there, and everywhere, just for a night at a time, arriving barely in time for dinner, and going away before breakfast. Once, and once only, he had seen Mrs. Bethune. Those other times she had been confined to her room with neuralgia (what should we all do without neuralgia?), or with letters to write, or something, _any_thing else. That one time she came out of the library at the very moment he had arrived. They met in the hall, and it was quite impossible to avoid seeing him. She came forward with a charming air. "Is it you? How long since we have met!" said she. Her tone was evenness itself; she was smiling brightly. If she was pale, he could not see it in the darkening twilight. "How troublesome these elections are! I see you have been staying with the Montgomerys; I do hope he will get in. But Conservatives are nowhere nowadays. Truth lies buried in a well. That's a good old saying." She nodded to him and went up a step or two of the stairs, then looked back. "Don't stay away from The Place on my account," said she, with rather an amused smile. "I like to have you here. And see how badly you are behaving to the beloved one!" She smiled again, with even more amusement than before, and continued her graceful way up the stairs. He had turned away sore at heart. She had not even thought it worth her while to make an appeal to him. If she had! He told himself that even then, if she had said but one word, he would have thrown up everything, even his _honour_, and gone with her to the ends of the earth. But she had not said that word--she had not cared--_sufficiently_. * * * *