you!" he said, "you have me at your mercy. Take the land for the
money, if you like, though it will nearly ruin me. That woman has
turned my head; I _must_ marry her, or I shall go mad."

"Very good; that is your affair. Remember that I have no
responsibility in the matter, and that I am not going to put any
pressure on Angela. If you want to marry her, you must win her within
the next eight months. Then that is settled. I suppose that you will
pay in the thousand to-morrow. The storm is coming up fast, so I won't
keep you. Good night," and they separated, George to drive home--with
fever in his heart, and the thunderstorm, of which he heard nothing,
rattling round him--and Philip to make his way to bed, with the dream
of his life advanced a step nearer realization.

"That was a lucky swim of Angela's to-night," he thought. "Fifty
thousand pounds for the estate. He is right; he must be going mad. But
will he get her to marry him, I wonder. If he does, I shall cry quits
with him, indeed."

CHAPTER XXXVIII

George had spoken no falsehood when he said that he felt as though he
must marry Angela or go mad. Indeed, it is a striking proof of how
necessary he thought that step to be to his happiness, that he had
been willing to consent to his cousin's Shylock-like terms about the
sale of the property, although they would in their result degrade him
from his position as a large landed proprietor, and make a
comparatively poor man of him. The danger or suffering that could
induce a Caresfoot to half ruin himself with his eyes open had need to
be of an extraordinarily pressing nature.

Love's empire is this globe and all mankind; the most refined and the
most degraded, the cleverest and the most stupid, are all liable to
become his faithful subjects. He can alike command the devotion of an
archbishop and a South-Sea Islander, of the most immaculate maiden
lady (whatever her age) and of the savage Zulu girl. From the pole to
the equator, and from the equator to the further pole, there is no
monarch like Love. Where he sets his foot, the rocks bloom with
flowers, or the garden becomes a wilderness, according to his good-
will and pleasure, and at his whisper all other allegiances melt away
like ropes of mud. He is the real arbiter of the destinies of the
world.

But to each nature of all the millions beneath his sway, Love comes in
a fitting guise, to some as an angel messenger, telling of sym