He fingered his letter, still with his face from her; she came round his chair, her scarlet dress rippled out of the shadows with colour. "Of course they cannot forgive," she said intensely. Now he looked round at her suddenly, and his expression startled even her strained anticipation. "What are they doing?" he demanded. "My lady is weeping--and Marius--raving like the boy he is." The Earl leant back. "They blame me, Susannah--curse me, I think, make me the thief of their happiness, and--" he checked himself. "I _am_ to blame, but I will repay." "How?" she asked, and her voice was almost frightened. Again he gave her his stormy grey eyes. "Marius is in love," he smiled, not softly. "Principally my lady thinks of that--spendthrift, you, she says, ruining this romance--well, Marius must not be a pauper either for this love or the next, and so----" "And so--what?" breathed Miss Chressham. "I must mend my fortunes even as I ruined them--I must resort to an expedient not pleasant--but I keep you standing"--he rose, his glance sought the clock--"and it is late." "I know what you mean to do," said Miss Chressham. "And if I had been one with any claim on you"--she checked herself for fear of the extravagant--"I cannot understand how they can force you," she finished. "They do not think of me," answered Lord Lyndwood. "My lady considers Marius, and Marius himself--I have done nothing that they _should_ think of me." "But you take the obligation of their future upon you," cried Susannah Chressham. He answered her in the spirit of the words he had written to Miss Boyle. "I am the elder--it is but decent; and, after all," he turned to her with a touch of his usual lightness, "'tis the fashion to marry for money." That glimpse of his old self unnerved her utterly. "Oh, Rose," she protested in trembling accents, "think what you are doing--why should you sell yourself because of Marius?" The Earl was silent; Miss Chressham looked at him a little space, then moved towards the window. "But as you say," she said in another and heavier tone, "everyone does it, and perhaps you do not care." As she finished her glance fell on the letter lying on the little desk between them, and she saw the name on it. "Ah!" she added swiftly. "Do you care?" He answered the eager look in her hazel eyes. "Enough not to wish to speak of it," he said quietly. "Enough to ask you to forget that I have said even that----" "This for Marius!" she cried, hardly knowing what she did or what words she spoke. "Nay, for myself," he answered recklessly, "that I may not hear their reproaches all my days--it had to be--by Gad, we cannot hope to end our lives in fairy tales." He picked up the letter and put it in his pocket. "Tell my lady to rest tranquil and Marius that he shall not starve--and for yourself--thank you, my sweet cousin." She turned her head away. "You will stay here to-night?" "No, I do not need to sleep to-night."