that she could not take
offence. "Surely one who cares for you as I do may know whether or not
you love the man that you are going to marry. It is no unreasonable
question, I think, Elizabeth. And if you do not love him, then again I
say that you are wrong and that it is not like your brave and honest
self to be silent."

"I cannot help it," she said, faintly. "I must keep my word."

"You are the best judge of that," he answered. But there was a little
coldness in his tone.

"Yes, I am the best judge," she went on more firmly. "I have promised;
and I will not break the promise that I have made. I told you before how
much I consider that I owe to them. Now that I have the chance of doing
a thing that will benefit, not only Percival, but all of them--from a
worldly point of view, I mean--I cannot bear to think of drawing back
from what I said I would do."

"How will it benefit them?"

"In a very small way, no doubt," she said, looking aside, so that she
might not see the mute protest of his face; "because worldly prosperity
is a small thing after all; but if you had seen, as I have, what it was
to my uncle to live in a poverty-stricken, sordid way, hampered with
duns and debts, and Percival harassing himself with vain endeavours to
set things straight, and the children feeling the sting of poverty more
and more as they grew older--and then to know that one has the power in
one's hands of remedying everything, without giving pain or hurting any
one's pride, or----"

"I am sorry," said Brian, as she hesitated for a word. "But I do not
understand."

"Why not!"

"How can you set things straight? And how is it that things want setting
straight? Mr. Heron is--surely--a rich man."

She laughed; even in the midst of her agitation, she laughed a soft,
pleasant, little laugh.

"Oh, I forgot," she said, suddenly. "You do not know. I found out on the
day you came that you did not know."

"Did not know--what?"

She raised her eyes to his face, and spoke with gravity, but great
sweetness.

"Nobody meant to deceive you," she said; "in fact, I scarcely know how
it is that you have not learnt the truth--partly; I suppose, because in
Italy I begged them not to tell anybody the true state of the case; but,
really, my uncle is not rich at all. He is a poor man. And Percival is
poor, too--very poor," she added, with a lingering sigh over the last
two words.

"Poor! But--how could a poor man travel in Italy, and rent the Vi