ive. She could doom herself to poverty,
and loneliness, and heart-rending regrets for her mother's sake. But
she did not know how she could give herself into the arms of a man she
did not love.

'I don't know what there is to explain,' said Felix to his mother. She
had asked him why he had not gone to Liverpool, whether he had been
interrupted by Melmotte himself, whether news had reached him from
Marie that she had been stopped, or whether,--as might have been
possible,--Marie had changed her own mind. But he could not bring
himself to tell the truth, or any story bordering on the truth. 'It
didn't come off,' he said, 'and of course that knocked me off my legs.
Well; yes. I did take some champagne when I found how it was. A fellow
does get cut up by that kind of thing. Oh, I heard it at the club,--that
the whole thing was off. I can't explain anything more. And then I was
so mad, I can't tell what I was after. I did get the ticket. There it
is. That shows I was in earnest. I spent the L30 in getting it. I
suppose the change is there. Don't take it, for I haven't another
shilling in the world.' Of course he said nothing of Marie's money, or
of that which he had himself received from Melmotte. And as his mother
had heard nothing of these sums she could not contradict what he said.
She got from him no further statement, but she was sure that there was
a story to be told which would reach her ears sooner or later.

That evening, about nine o'clock, Mr Broune called in Welbeck Street.
He very often did call now, coming up in a cab, staying for a cup of
tea, and going back in the same cab to the office of his newspaper.
Since Lady Carbury had, so devotedly, abstained from accepting his
offer, Mr Broune had become almost sincerely attached to her. There
was certainly between them now more of the intimacy of real friendship
than had ever existed in earlier days. He spoke to her more freely
about his own affairs, and even she would speak to him with some
attempt at truth. There was never between them now even a shade of
love-making. She did not look into his eyes, nor did he hold her hand.
As for kissing her,--he thought no more of it than of kissing the
maid-servant. But he spoke to her of the things that worried him,--the
unreasonable exactions of proprietors, and the perilous inaccuracy of
contributors. He told her of the exceeding weight upon his shoulders,
under which an Atlas would have succumbed. And he told her somethi