my
mother. The allowance she makes me at present is quite inadequate for a
man in Parliament, and she could stop it to-morrow."

"You might have to give up Parliament?"

"I should very likely have to give up Parliament."

Sir James ruminated, and took up his half-smoked cigar for counsel.

"I can't imagine, Oliver, that your mother would push her opposition to
quite that point. But, in any case, you have forgotten Miss Mallory's
own fortune."

"It has never entered into my thoughts!" cried Marsham, with an emphasis
which Sir James knew to be honest. "But, in any case, I cannot live upon
my wife. If I could not find something to do, I should certainly give up
politics."

His tone had become a little dry and bitter, his aspect gray.

Sir James surveyed him a moment--pondering.

"You will find plenty of ways out, Oliver--plenty! The sympathy of all
the world will be with you. You have won a beautiful and noble creature.
She has been brought up under a more than Greek fate. You will rescue
her from it. You will show her how to face it--and how to conquer it."

A tremor swept across Marsham's handsome mouth. But the perplexity and
depression in the face remained.

Sir James had a slight consciousness of rebuff. But it disappeared in
his own emotion. He resumed:

"She ought to be told the story--perhaps with some omissions--at once.
Her mother"--he spoke with a slow precision, forcing out the words--"was
not a bad woman. If you like, I will break it to Miss Mallory. I am
probably more intimately acquainted with the story than any one else
now living."

Something in the tone, in the solemnity of the blue eyes, in the
carriage of the gray head, touched Marsham to the quick. He laid a hand
on his old friend's shoulder--affectionately--in mute thanks.

"Diana mentioned her father's solicitors--"

"I know"--interrupted Sir James--"Riley & Bonner--excellent
fellows--both of them still living. They probably have all the records.
And I shouldn't wonder if they have a letter--from Sparling. He _must_
have made provision--for the occasion that has now arisen."

"A letter?--for Diana?"

Sir James nodded. "His behavior to her was a piece of moral cowardice, I
suppose. I saw a good deal of him during the trial, of course, though it
is years now since I lost all trace of him. He was a sensitive, shy
fellow, wrapped up in his archaeology, and very ignorant of the
world--when it all happened. It tore him up by the roots.