then."

"Perhaps you'd have been just as keen as she is to rob my boy of his
name. And so George wanted to marry you! Was he very much in love?"

"I was bound to suppose so, my lord."

"And you didn't care for him!"

"I didn't say that. But I certainly did not care to set up housekeeping
without a house or without the money to get one. Was I wrong?"

"I suppose a fellow ought to have money when he wants to marry. Well,
my dear, there is no knowing what may come yet. Won't it be odd, if
after all, you should be Marchioness of Brotherton some day? After that
won't you give me a kiss before you say good-night."

"I would have done if you had been my brother-in-law,--or, perhaps, if
the people were not all moving about in the next room. Good-night,
Marquis."

"Good-night. Perhaps you'll regret some day that you haven't done what
I asked."

"I might regret it more if I did." Then she took herself off, enquiring
in her own mind whether it might still be possible that she should ever
preside in the drawing-room at Manor Cross. Had he not been very much
in love with her, surely he would not have talked to her like that.

"I think I'll say good-bye to you, De Baron," the Marquis said to his
host, that night.

"You won't be going early."

"No;--I never do anything early. But I don't like a fuss just as I am
going. I'll get down and drive away to catch some train. My man will
manage it all."

"You go to London?"

"I shall be in Italy within a week. I hate Italy, but I think I hate
England worse. If I believed in heaven and thought I were going there,
what a hurry I should be in to die."

"Let us know how Popenjoy is."

"You'll be sure to know whether he is dead or alive. There's nothing
else to tell. I never write letters except to Knox, and very few to
him. Good-night."

When the Marquis was in his room, his courier, or the man so called,
came to undress him. "Have you heard anything to-day?" he asked in
Italian. The man said that he had heard. A letter had reached him that
afternoon from London. The letter had declared that little Popenjoy was
sinking. "That will do Bonni," he said. "I will get into bed by
myself." Then he sat down and thought of himself, and his life, and his
prospects,--and of the prospects of his enemies.

CHAPTER LIII.

POOR POPENJOY!

On the following morning the party at Rudham Park were assembled at
breakfast between ten and eleven. It was understood that the Marquis
wa