“Ah well,” he said with a sigh, “I married about a year after. They’re nineteen and twenty, or thereabouts. Rosamond, they tell me, ought to be brought out; but what is the good of bringing out a girl into the world who has no one to protect her? Nobody but a worldly-minded aunt who will sell her for what she will bring--marry her off her hands as quickly as possible; that is all she will think of. It may seem strange to you, but my little girl is proud of me, dreadful object as I am.” “Why should it seem strange? It would be very unnatural if she was not.” “She is the only one in the world who cares a brass farthing whether I live or die.” As Evelyn raised her eyes full of pity, she was suddenly aware that he was watching her, watching for some tell-tale flush or gesture which should give a tacit denial to what he said. He, like Lady Leighton, was of opinion that a woman never forgets, and dreadful object as he allowed himself to be, the man’s vanity would fain have been fed by some sign that the woman beside him, whom he had abandoned so basely, whose heart he had done his best to break, still cherished something of the old feeling, and was his still. He was disconcerted by the calm compassion in her eyes. “Eddy is as cold as a stone,” he said; “he is like his mother’s people. He doesn’t see why an old fellow like me should keep dragging on. He minds no more than Jarvis does--less, for I am Jarvis’s living, and to keep me alive is the best thing for him. But it would be better for Eddy, he thinks, if I were out of the way.” “Please do not speak so; I don’t believe that any son really entertains such thoughts.” “Ah, that shows how little you know. You have not been in society all these years. Eddy is philosophical, and thinks that I have very little good of my life, which is true enough, and that he would have a great deal, which is quite as true.” “Even if it were so, he would not be his own master--at nineteen,” Evelyn said. “Twenty--he is the eldest. Of course he would be better off in that case. He would have more freedom, and a better allowance; and he would be of more importance, not the second but the first.” “Oh,” she cried with horror, “do not impute such dreadful motives to your own child.” He shook his head, looking at her with an air of cynical wisdom--a look which made the countenance, so changed and faded with disease, almost diabolical to contemplate. Evelyn turned her eyes away with a movement of horrified impatience. And this was not at all the feeling with which Saumarez meant to inspire the woman who had once loved him. He was unwilling even now to believe that she had entirely escaped out of his power. “Evelyn,” he said, putting forth again that large nerveless hand, from the touch of which she shrank--“let me call you so, as in the old days. It can do no one any harm now.” “Surely not,” she said; “it could do no one any harm.”