detail. If you will tell me now all you know, it
will be a help. Of course, I see that you and the neighbourhood mean to
cut him,--and--for the sake of--of Miss Boyce and her mother, I should
be glad to find a way out."

"Good heavens!" said Lord Maxwell, beginning to pace the room, hands
pressed behind him, head bent. "Good heavens! what a business! what an
extraordinary business!"

He stopped short in front of Aldous. "Where have you been meeting
her--this young lady?"

"At the Hardens'--sometimes in Mellor village. She goes about among the
cottages a great deal."

"You have not proposed to her?"

"I was not certain of myself till to-day. Besides it would have been
presumption so far. She has shown me nothing but the merest
friendliness."

"What, you can suppose she would refuse you!" cried Lord Maxwell, and
could not for the life of him keep the sarcastic intonation out of his
voice.

Aldous's look showed distress. "You have not seen her, grandfather," he
said quietly.

Lord Maxwell began to pace again, trying to restrain the painful emotion
that filled him. Of course, Aldous had been entrapped; the girl had
played upon his pity, his chivalry--for obvious reasons.

Aldous tried to soothe him, to explain, but Lord Maxwell hardly
listened. At last he threw himself into his chair again with a long
breath.

"Give me time, Aldous--give me time. The thought of marrying my heir to
that man's daughter knocks me over a little."

There was silence again. Then Lord Maxwell looked at his watch with
old-fashioned precision.

"There is half an hour before dinner. Sit down, and let us talk this
thing out."

* * * * *

The conversation thus started, however, was only begun by dinner-time;
was resumed after Miss Raeburn--the small, shrewd, bright-eyed person
who governed Lord Maxwell's household--had withdrawn; and was continued
in the library some time beyond his lordship's usual retiring hour. It
was for the most part a monologue on the part of the grandfather, broken
by occasional words from his companion; and for some time Marcella Boyce
herself--the woman whom Aldous desired to marry--was hardly mentioned in
it. Oppressed and tormented by a surprise which struck, or seemed to
strike, at some of his most cherished ideals and just resentments, Lord
Maxwell was bent upon letting his grandson know, in all their fulness,
the reasons why no daughter of Richard Boyce could ever be, in