‘Utterly disgraceful, when I think of how he has behaved to my poor trusting girl——’ ‘Still,’ says Crosby thoughtfully, ‘you tell me there were no words said.’ ‘No actual words.’ ‘Ah, the others are so useless,’ says Crosby. Mrs. Prior lifts her eyes to his for a moment. Real emotion shines in them; and all at once Crosby is conscious of a sense of shame. Poor soul! however mistaken, however contemptible her trouble, still it is trouble, and therefore worthy of consideration. ‘I can see you are not on my side,’ says she at last. ‘You have no sympathy with my grief, and yet you might have. I have had many griefs in my time, George, but this is the worst of all. To have my daughter thus treated! Of course, after this I could not—I really believe I could not sanction her marriage with Paul.’ She pauses, and delicately dabs her handkerchief into her eyes. Her hopes of a marriage between her daughter and Wyndham have been at such a low ebb for a long time that there is scarcely any harm in declaring now her determination not to wed her daughter to her cousin at any price. If things should take a turn for the better, if her threats about informing Shangarry should take effect, she can easily get out of her present attitude. ‘Yes, such troubles!’ She dabs her eyes again. ‘First my sister’s terrible marriage with a perfectly impossible person—you know all about that, George—poor dear Eleanor; and then my father’s will, leaving everything to Eleanor and her children, though he had so often excommunicated her, as it were. And the trouble with that will! The searching here and there for Eleanor—poor Eleanor; such awful trouble—advertisements, and private inquiry people, and all the rest. As you know, it is only quite lately that, certain information of her death without issue having come to hand, I have been enabled to live.’ ‘Yes—yes, I know,’ says Crosby. He is on his very best behaviour now. ‘You have always appreciated my sweet girl at her proper worth, at all events,’ says Mrs. Prior, dabbing her eyes for the last time, and emerging from behind her handkerchief with wonderfully pale lids. ‘I have—I have indeed!’ exclaims Crosby warmly. Anything to pacify her! His manner is so warm, so ardent, that Mrs. Prior pauses, and her mind starts on another track. With rapidity her thoughts fly back and then forward. Crosby is quite as good a match as Paul, if one excludes the title. And perhaps—who knows? ‘George,’ says she softly, but with emotion, ‘perhaps you think me hard. But a mother—and that dreadful girl lives there alone in his house; and he visits her; and can you still, from your heart, tell me that she——’ She breaks off, as if quite overcome, and unable to go on. ‘I can tell you this, at all events,’ says Crosby, ‘that she does not live alone. Wyndham has engaged a lady to be a companion to her.’