think I may say that he has quite resolved to drop the title as idle
lumber. You perhaps know that he is not easily persuaded."

"The most obstinate fellow I ever knew in my life," said Hampstead,
laughing. "And he has talked my sister over to his own views." Then
he turned suddenly round to Marion, and asked her a question. "Shall
I go now, dearest?" he said.

She had already told him to go,--to go, and never to return to her.
But the question was put to her in such a manner that were she simply
to assent to his going, she would, by doing so, assent also to his
returning. For the sake of her duty to him, in order that she might
carry out that self-sacrifice in the performance of which she would
now be so resolute, it was necessary that he should in truth be made
to understand that he was not to come back to her. But how was this
to be done while Mrs. Roden was present with them? Had he not been
there then she could have asked her friend to help her in her great
resolution. But before the two she could say nothing of that which
it was in her heart to say to both of them. "If it pleases you, my
lord," she said.

"I will not be 'my lord.' Here is Roden, who is a real duke, and
whose ancestors have been dukes since long before Noah, and he is
allowed to be called just what he pleases, and I am to have no voice
in it with my own particular and dearest friends! Nevertheless I will
go, and if I don't come to-day, or the day after, I will write you
the prettiest little love-letter I can invent."

"Don't," she said;--oh so weakly, so vainly;--in a manner so utterly
void of that intense meaning which she was anxious to throw into her
words. She was conscious of her own weakness, and acknowledged to
herself that there must be another interview, or at any rate a letter
written on each side, before he could be made to understand her own
purpose. If it must be done by a letter, how great would be the
struggle to her in explaining herself. But perhaps even that might
be easier than the task of telling him all that she would have to
tell, while he was standing by, impetuous, impatient, perhaps almost
violent, assuring her of his love, and attempting to retain her by
the pressure of his hand.

"But I shall," he said, as he held her now for a moment. "I am not
quite sure whether I may not have to go to Trafford; and if so there
shall be the love-letter. I feel conscious, Mrs. Roden, of being
incapable of writing a proper love-lett