"I cannot with truth say that, sir. We are so poor that the pride I once had is broken. Pardon me if I say that I think you have no intention of offering it." "I have none." She bowed, and crossed to the opposite side of the road; but before she had gone a dozen yards she heard his voice accosting her. "It is in my mind to say something to you." She turned to him with a sudden hope. Had he relented? Had her distress softened his heart towards her? A glance at his face dispelled the hope. There was in it no sign of pity. "Accompany me to my house," he said. Bewildered and surprised she walked by his side in silence, and they entered the mansion together. "You would probably like," said Mr. Manners, "to have some better knowledge than you at present possess of the position which, by his disobedience and unfilial conduct, my son has forfeited." CHAPTER XXV. He conducted her through some of the principal apartments, which had been furnished and decorated in a princely style. The pictures, the sculptures, the _bric-à-brac_ were of the choicest character. Her feet sank in the thick, soft carpets, and her heart fainted within her as she followed Mr. Manners through the sumptuously appointed rooms. He paused before one, and, throwing open the door, "You may enter; it was my son's bedroom." "She obeyed him, a rush of tears almost blinding her; Mr. Manners remained outside. She saw, not a bedroom, but a suite of rooms luxuriously furnished; a library of costly books; rare old engravings on the walls; a bath-room fitted up with all the newest appliances; everything that money could purchase to make a man's life pleasant and devoid of care. She remained there but a short time; the contrast between these rooms and the miserable attics which she and her uncle occupied, and to which she hoped to welcome Kingsley, appalled her. When she rejoined Mr. Manners in the passage he led her down-stairs and ushered her into his study. "You may sit down," he said. She was tired, wretched, and dispirited, and she accepted the ungracious invitation. "I am not in the habit of boasting of my wealth," he said; "what you have seen affords proof of it. And all that you have seen, with means sufficient to keep it up ten times over, would have been my son's had you not marred his career. I will not do you an injustice; you have surprised me; I thought that my son had taken up with a common, vulgar woman; I find myself mistaken." Again animated by hope, she looked up; again her hope was destroyed by the stern face she gazed upon.