"Why, then?" "Because, for all her high birth and proud position, she will have to sell herself for money." The shot told. She saw his cheek grow red. "Mrs. West has been telling her these things. I wish to Heaven she had held her tongue!" he thought, bitterly. But aloud he said, lightly: "Perhaps you may find it expedient to do the same thing, Miss West." "To do what?" she inquired. "To marry for money," he replied. "And you think it would be expedient?" she inquired, drawing her delicate black brows together in a vexed little frown. "Yes, for you," he replied. "You are too beautiful and gifted, Miss West, to be contented in your present humble condition. You should marry wealth and position. Both would become you rarely." "Thank you, my lord," she said, bowing, with a pretty gesture of mock humility. "That reminds me to tell you that De Vere will be here to-morrow," he said, suddenly. "What has that to do with our subject?" she inquired, shortly. "Everything. De Vere is in love with you, and he is rich and well born. You can be Mrs. De Vere any time you wish." "Did your friend employ you to tell me this?" asked Leonora, pale with passion. "No; but he would have no objection to my doing so. He will tell you so himself when he comes." "And you advise me to marry him?" she asked, gazing into his face with her soft, steady glance. His own eyes fell beneath it. "I should not presume to advise you; yet it would be a good thing for you, I know. De Vere adores you. He would be your slave, and you would be like a little queen in the position to which his wealth would raise you." "You make a great deal of wealth," she said, gravely, and waiting curiously for his reply. "It is a great power in the world," he replied. "Is it?" she asked. "Ah! Lord Lancaster, 'almost thou persuadest me' to sink to Lady Adela's level and sell myself for gold." "You seem to have imbibed a strange contempt for Lady Adela," he said. "I have. Where is her womanliness, her self-respect, that she can lend herself to that wicked old woman's ambitious schemes for buying a coroneted head with her twenty thousand a year? She is the daughter of a hundred earls, and yet she can give herself to you merely for the money's sake. Pah!" "Need it be merely for the money's sake?" he asked. "Am I repulsive to look upon, Miss West? Is it quite impossible that a woman, Lady Adela or another, should give me her heart with her hand?" Something like wounded pride quivered in his voice, and he looked at her reproachfully. "Would it be impossible for me to be loved for myself alone?" he went on, slowly. "Might not some good, true, sweet woman love me for my own self--even as I am?" She looked up at the handsome face, the large, graceful form, and silently recalled the words Lieutenant De Vere had spoken to her on the steamer's deck that day: "He is more run after by the women than any man in the regiment."