"What other than you did could you have done?" she asked, faintly surprised that he should refer to this with so much passion. But Marius continued unheeding. "We turned on her that night--well, we have been living on her money ever since, Rose is again on the verge of ruin, and what has her life been? He has behaved to her as to his servant." Susannah straightened herself. "I fear I can look at none of it from the Countess's point of view." "She is indifferent to _me_," he struck in quickly. "But I have her on my conscience." He moved forward suddenly and stood behind the settee. "She was so different once--what have we made of her? I have no right to scorn her as I did, and now it seems that she appeals to me. Susannah, tell me what I ought to do." Miss Chressham was startled by the tense note in his voice; she glanced up at him over her shoulder. "Oh, Marius! why do you come to me?" she murmured weakly. He leant his arms on the top of her seat and rested his head in his right hand; his frowning eyes gazed before him, and he spoke in a voice that she hardly knew for his. "I want to be better than any of it, I should like to live differently from Rose--from any of them." As he jerked out the words the colour rose and receded in his earnest young face. "I started wrong, I never really cared for her, but I did not know. And then there was always the money. I thought I should never need for that; but things have changed so, in this last year. I--I want to get out of it, I want you to help me." He came to an end, very pale, and Susannah sat silent. She felt with a sense of shock that he was making an effort to reveal his very soul to her; she saw his emotion, and wondered dimly that it did not touch her. She was angry with herself that her only desire was to silence him, to escape from the effort of striving to understand him; she was very tired, and her inner thoughts were far from Marius. "When I was abroad," he continued, "I--I used to think of it and could find no way; but I must escape it. I--do you believe in Heaven and Hell, Susannah?" "'Tis what we are taught," she answered; "what makes you speak in this fashion, Marius?" His breath came passionately, he did not look at her. "Ah, I want to do something worth while; I do not want to be damned through ignoble foolish vices. You know, you remember, in the ballads we used to read--" He broke off, then added huskily, "Do you not understand, Susannah?" She was frightened. "Oh, not to-night! do not speak of this to-night," she cried. "I am very weary." "I must speak when I can. I am appealing to you, do not you see? You are the only person I would say this to. I speak very awkwardly. I am not worth----" "Oh, Marius!" again weakly she tried to stop him. His speech became almost incoherent; she caught only the burden of it, "Do you not understand?"