p for her to take--for one so little led by kindly
impulses, or rather for one who had so few kindly impulses to be led
by; but everyone has a soft spot somewhere in his heart, and Lady
Rylton had loved her brother, good-for-nothing as he was. There
might have been a touch of remorse, too, in her charity; she had
made Marian's marriage!

Grudgingly, coldly, she opened her son's doors to her niece, but
still she opened them. She was quite at liberty to do this, as
Maurice was seldom at home, and gave her always _carte blanche_ to
do as she would with all that belonged to him. She made Marian
Bethune's life for the first few months a burden to her, and then
Marian Bethune, who had waited, took the reins in a measure; at all
events, she made herself so useful to Lady Rylton that the latter
could hardly get on without her.

Maurice had fallen in love with her almost at once; insensibly but
thoroughly. There had been an hour in which he had flung himself,
metaphorically, at her feet (one never does the real thing now,
because it spoils one's trousers so), and offered his heart, and all
the fortune still left to him after his mother's reign; and Marian
had refused it all, very tenderly, very sympathetically, very
regretfully--to tell the truth--but she _had_ refused it.

She had sweetened the refusal by declaring that, as she could not
marry him--as she could not to be so selfish as to ruin his
prospects--she would never marry at all. She had looked lovely in
the light of the dying sunset as she said all this to him, and
Maurice had believed in her a thousand times more than before, and
had loved her a thousand times deeper. And in a sense his belief was
justified. She did love him, as she had never loved before, but not
well enough to risk poverty again. She had seen enough of that in
her first marriage, and in her degradation and misery had sworn a
bitter oath to herself never again to marry, unless marriage should
sweep her into the broad river of luxury and content. Had Maurice's
financial affairs been all they ought to have been but for his
mother's extravagances, she undoubtedly would have chosen him before
all the world; but Maurice's fortunes were (and are) at a low ebb,
and she would risk nothing. His uncle _might_ die, and then Maurice,
who was his heir, would be a rich man; but his uncle was only
sixty-five, and he might marry again, and---- No, she would refuse!

Rylton had pressed his suit many times, but sh