“This very journey my brother took to Europe,” continued Alva, “was planned by mamma to break him from a fancy he seemed to have for the beautiful Miss Maury of Mount Vernon. We did not admire the girl, and mamma was wild at the thought of having her for a daughter. But Maybelle was angling for him so skillfully that mamma had papa to telegraph him to come home, to go across the sea at a minute’s notice.” She sighed, and added: “You can see from this one incident how resolute mamma can be when roused to action. And as for papa, he always takes sides with her in everything.” “Perhaps--perhaps they will persuade your brother to desert his love,” breathed Floy, tremulously. “Perhaps so; or perhaps he will cling to her in spite of all; and in either case he will be unhappy,” returned Alva, not dreaming how cruelly her words stabbed Floy’s loving heart. She continued, sadly enough: “You see, if St. George marries the girl, they will disinherit him, and he will have so little money, poor fellow--having been used to luxury all his life--that he will not know how to live. Poverty will crush him, and perhaps he will regret that he ever saw the girl. Ah, me! Will you ring for lights, please, dear Floy?” CHAPTER XXXIII. PRIDE BROUGHT LOW. St. George Beresford’s precautions that his parents should not know of his illness were useless. It was not probable that the son of an American millionaire could fall ill in London without the knowledge of the ubiquitous reporters for the American newspapers. So the first news the Beresfords had of their son’s illness was brought through a special to a New York daily paper. Something seemed to snap like a too hardly strained cord in the mother’s heart when she read the paragraph and she fell in a heavy swoon to the floor. The thought had struck through her mind that if her son died it would have been through her pride and harshness that it had happened. She had been too imperious and too hasty. She should have tried gentler means with her spoiled but noble and loving boy. She realized it all too late as she cried out to her anxious husband: “You must take me to my son. He must forgive me before he dies!” “We will start at the earliest possible hour,” he replied, huskily. Most fortunately a steamer was leaving New York that day, and they had no difficulty in securing a first-class passage. “It will be lonely for you, dear, without us. Perhaps you had better go on to Newport next week, as we had planned,” they said to Alva, who answered, cheerily: “No--no; I will await your return here. I am not anxious to begin the gay season at the seashore.” So she remained in the large, splendid mansion with the servants, and the anxious parents set out on their journey. Oh, those weary days upon the sea, how long they were, how heavily they dragged to those two hearts aching with remorse and grief! “We were too harsh,” sighed the father.