er doom was written. "Poor
idiot!" was not uncharitably inscribed by the sisterly lady on the
tombstone of hopes aimed with scarce pardonable ambition at her brother.

She blew away the rumour. Ormont, she vowed, had not entitled any woman
to share and bear his title. And this was her interpretation of the
report: he permitted (if he did permit) the woman to take his name, that
he might have a scornful fling at the world maltreating him. Besides, the
name was not published, it was not to be seen in the papers; it passed
merely among male friends, tradesmen, servants: no great harm in that.

Listen further. Here is an unknown girl: why should he marry her? A girl
consenting to the place beside a man of his handsome ripe age, is either
bought, or she is madly enamoured; she does not dictate terms. Ormont is
not of the brute buyers in that market. One sees it is the girl who leads
the dance. A girl is rarely so madly enamoured as when she falls in love
with her grandfather; she pitches herself at his head. This had not
happened for the first time in Ormont's case; and he had never proposed
marriage. Why should he do it now?

But again, if the girl has breeding to some extent, he might think it her
due that she should pass under the safeguard of his name, out of sight.

Then, so far the report is trustworthy. We blow the rumour out of belief.
A young woman there is: she is not a wife. Lady Charlotte allowed her the
fairly respectable post of Hecate of the Shades, as long as the girl was
no pretender to the place and name in the upper sphere. Her deductions
were plausible, convincing to friends shaken by her vehement manner of
coming at them. She convinced herself by means of her multitude of
reasons for not pursuing inquiry. Her brother said nothing. There was no
need for him to speak. He seemed on one or two occasions in the act of
getting himself together for the communication of a secret; and she made
ready to listen hard, with ears, eyebrows, shut month, and a gleam at the
back of her eyes, for a signification of something she would refer him to
after he had spoken. He looked at her and held his peace, or virtually
held it,--that is, he said not one word on the subject she was to have
told him she had anticipated. Lady Charlotte ascribed it to his
recollection of the quick blusher, the pained blusher, she was in her
girlhood at mention or print of the story of men and women. Who, not
having known her, could conceive i