. I fell in love with you the
first time I saw you--at that dance of the Horn-Wallises. Do you
remember? I wanted you to be my wife; I wanted you more than I ever
wanted anything else in my life. Do you not remember the day I proposed
to you, there under Taplow Wood, at that picnic where we all got wet and
miserable? And you said 'Yes'; and my uncle was pleased. But all is
changed now; I am just Drake Selbie, with very little or no income, and
a mountain of debts; with no prospects of becoming Lord Angleford and
owner of the Angleford money and lands. And I want to know how this
change--strikes you; what you mean, to do?"

She glanced up at him sideways.

"You--you haven't got my letters?" she said.

He shook his head.

"I'm--I'm sorry," she said. "It isn't my fault. Father--you know what he
would say. He may be right. He said that--that you were ruined; that our
marriage would be quite impossible; that--that our engagement must be
broken off. Really, Drake, it is not my fault. You know how poor we are;
that--that a rich marriage is an absolute necessity for me. Father is up
to his neck in debt, too, and we scarcely seem to have a penny of ready
money; it's nothing but duns, and duns, and duns, every day in the week;
why, even now, we've had to bolt from London because I can't pay my
milliner's bill. It's simply impossible for me to marry a poor man. I
should only be a drag upon him; and father--well, father would be a drag
upon him, too; you know what father is. And--and so, Drake, I wrote and
told you that--that our engagement must be considered broken off and at
an end."

She paused a moment, and looked from right to left, like some feeble
animal driven into a corner, and restlessly conscious of Drake Selbie's
stern regard.

"Of course I'm very sorry. You know I'm--I'm very fond of you. I don't
think there is any one in the world like you; so--so handsome and--and
altogether nice. But what can I do? I can't run against the wish of my
father and of all my friends. In fact, I can't afford to marry you,
Drake."

He looked at her with a bitter smile on his lips, and a still more
bitter cynicism in his eyes.

"I understand," he said; "I quite understand. When you said that you
loved me, loved me with all your heart and soul, you meant that you
loved Drake Selbie, the heir of Angleford, the prospective owner of
Anglemere and Lord Angleford's money; and now that my uncle has married,
and that he may have a child