strong, her strength was sufficient for her. "My lord!"
she exclaimed.

"Ah, you are angry with me?"

"My lord, my lord,--I did not think you would treat me like that."

"But, Marion; do you not love me?"

"Have I not told you that I do? Have I not been true and honest to
you? Do you not know it all?" But in truth he did not know it all.
"And now I must bid you never, never to come again."

"But I shall come. I will come. I will come always. You will not
cease to love me?"

"No;--not that--I cannot do that. But you must not come. You have
done that which makes me ashamed of myself." At that moment the door
was opened, and Mrs. Roden came into the room.

CHAPTER XXI.

DI CRINOLA.

The reader must submit to have himself carried back some weeks,--to
those days early in January, when Mrs. Roden called upon her son to
accompany her to Italy. Indeed, he must be carried back a long way
beyond that; but the time during which he need be so detained shall
be short. A few pages will suffice to tell so much of the early life
of this lady as will be necessary to account for her residence in
Paradise Row.

Mary Roden, the lady whom we have known as Mrs. Roden, was left an
orphan at the age of fifteen, her mother having died when she was
little more than an infant. Her father was an Irish clergyman with
no means of his own but what he secured from a small living; but his
wife had inherited money amounting to about eight thousand pounds,
and this had descended to Mary when her father died. The girl was
then taken in charge by a cousin of her own, a lady ten years her
senior who had lately married, and whom we have since met as Mrs.
Vincent, living at Wimbledon. Mr. Vincent had been well connected and
well-to-do in the world, and till he died the household in which Mary
Roden had been brought up had been luxurious as well as comfortable.
Nor did Mr. Vincent die till after his wife's cousin had found a
husband for herself. Soon afterwards he was gathered to his fathers,
leaving to his widow a comfortable, but not more than a comfortable,
income.

The year before his death he and his wife had gone into Italy, rather
on account of his health than for pleasure, and had then settled
themselves at Verona for a winter,--a winter which eventually
stretched itself into nearly a year, at the close of which Mr.
Vincent died. But before that event took place Mary Roden had become
a wife.

At Verona, at first at the house