nd it? He doesn't do me the honour to mention the time. And
this is his reply to a third application!"

The truth was that Wilfrid was in dire want of tangible cash simply to
provision his yacht. The light kindled in him by this unsatisfied need
made him keen to comprehend all that Arabella's attempt at plain writing
designed to unfold.

"Good God, my father's the woman's trustee!" shaped itself in Wilfrid's
brain.

And next: "If he marries her we may all be as poor as before." That is
to say, "Honour may be saved without ruin being averted."

His immediate pressing necessity struck like a pulse through all the
chords of dismal conjecture. His heart flying about for comfort, dropped
at Emilia's feet.

"Bella's right," he said, reverting to the green page in his hand; "we
can't involve others in our scrape, whatever it may be."

He ceased on the spot to be at war with himself, as he had been for many
a day; by which he was taught to imagine that he had achieved a mental
indifference to misfortune. This lightened his spirit considerably. "So
there's an end of that," he emphasized, as the resolve took form to
tell Lady Charlotte flatly that his father was ruined, and that the son,
therefore, renounced his particular hope and aspiration.

"She will say, in the most matter-of-fact way in the world, 'Oh,
very well, that quite alters the case,'" said Wilfrid aloud, with the
smallest infusion of bitterness. Then he murmured, "Poor old governor!"
and wondered whether Emilia would come to this place according to his
desire. Love, that had lain crushed in him for the few recent days,
sprang up and gave him the thought, "She may be here now;" but, his eyes
not being satiated instantly with a sight of her, the possibility of
such happiness faded out.

"Blessed little woman!" he cried openly, ashamed to translate in
tenderer terms the soft fresh blossom of love that his fancy conjured
forth at the recollection of her. He pictured to himself hopefully,
moreover, that she would be shy when they met. A contradictory vision of
her eyes lifted hungry for his first words, or the pressure of his
arm displeased him slightly. It occurred to him that they would be
characterized as a singular couple. To combat this he drew around him
all the mysteries of sentiment that had issued from her voice and her
eyes. She had made Earth lovely to him and heaven human. She--what
a grief for ever that her origin should be what it was! For this
re