that he should go,--and
now he was gone. There was in that a relief which almost comforted
her. And this was the man from whom, within the last few days, she
had accepted an offer of marriage.

George, when he left the house, walked hurriedly into Cavendish
Square, and down along the east side, till he made his way out along
Princes Street, into the Circus in Oxford Street. Close to him there,
in Great Marlborough Street, was the house of his parliamentary
attorney, Mr Scruby, on whom he was bound to call on that morning. As
he had walked away from Queen Anne Street, he had thought of nothing
but that too visible shudder which his cousin Alice had been unable
to repress. He had been feeding on his anger, and indulging it,
telling himself at one moment that he would let her and her money go
from him whither they list,--and making inward threats in the next
that the time should come in which he would punish her for this
ill-usage. But there was the necessity of resolving what he would say
to Mr Scruby. To Mr Scruby was still due some trifle on the cost of
the last election; but even if this were paid, Mr Scruby would make
no heavy advance towards the expense of the next election. Whoever
might come out at the end of such affairs without a satisfactory
settlement of his little bill, as had for a while been the case with
Mr Grimes, from the "Handsome Man,"--and as, indeed, still was the
case with him, as that note of hand at three months' date was not yet
paid,--Mr Scruby seldom allowed himself to suffer. It was true that
the election would not take place till the summer; but there were
preliminary expenses which needed ready money. Metropolitan voters,
as Mr Scruby often declared, required to be kept in good humour,--so
that Mr Scruby wanted the present payment of some five hundred
pounds, and a well-grounded assurance that he would be put in full
funds by the beginning of next June. Even Mr Scruby might not be true
as perfect steel, if he thought that his candidate at the last moment
would not come forth properly prepared. Other candidates, with money
in their pockets, might find their way into Mr Scruby's offices. As
George Vavasor crossed Regent Street, he gulped down his anger, and
applied his mind to business. Should he prepare himself to give
orders that Kate's little property should be sold out, or would he
resolve to use his cousin's money? That his cousin's money would
still be at his disposal, in spite of the s