By degrees, too, and not by slow degrees, the new comer found that he was treated as one of the family,--found that, after a certain fashion, he was treated as the heir to the family. Between him and the title and the estate there were but the lives of four old men. Why had he not known that this was so before he had allowed himself to be separated from Mary Lowther? But he had known nothing of it,--had thought not at all about it. There had been another Marrable, of the same generation with himself, between him and the succession, who might marry and have children, and he had not regarded his heirship as being likely to have any effect, at any rate upon his early life. It had never occurred to him that he need not go to India, because he would probably outlive four old gentlemen and become Sir Walter Marrable and owner of Dunripple. Nor would he have looked at the matter in that light now had not his cousin forced the matter upon him. Not a word was said to him at Dunripple about Mary Lowther, but very many words were said about his own condition. Gregory Marrable strongly advised him against going to India,--so strongly that Walter was surprised to find that such a man would have so much to say on such a subject. The young captain, in such circumstances, could not very well explain that he was driven to follow his profession in a fashion so disagreeable to him because, although he was heir to Dunripple, he was not near enough to it to be entitled to any allowance from its owner; but he felt that that would have been the only true answer when it was proposed to him to stay in England because he would some day become Sir Walter Marrable. But he did plead the great loss which he had encountered by means of his father's ill-treatment of him, and endeavoured to prove to his cousin that there was no alternative before him but to serve in some quarter of the globe in which his pay would be sufficient for his wants. "Why should you not sell out, or go on half-pay, and remain here and marry Edith Brownlow?" said his cousin. "I don't think I could do that," said Walter, slowly. "Why not? There is nothing my father would like so much." Then he was silent for awhile, but, as his cousin made no further immediate reply, Gregory Marrable went on with his plan. "Ten years ago, when she was not much more than a little girl, and when it was first arranged that she should come here, my father proposed--that I should marry her." "And why didn't you?" The elder cousin smiled and shook his head, and coughed aloud as he smiled. "Why not, indeed? Well; I suppose you can see why not. I was an old man almost before she was a young woman. She is just twenty-four now, and I shall be dead, probably, in two years' time." "Nonsense." "Twice since that time I have been within an inch of dying. At any rate, even my father does not look to that any longer." "Is he fond of Miss Brownlow?"