ine which he wrote to his skipper in answer to
piteous applications made to him. None of those who were near and
dear to him knew how he passed his time. His sister left him and went
up to the house in London, and he felt that her going was a relief to
him. He would not even admit his friend Roden to come to him in his
trouble. He spent his days all alone at Hendon, occasionally going
across to Holloway in order that he might talk of his sorrow to Mrs.
Roden. Midsummer had come upon him before he again saw the Quaker.
Marion's father had left a feeling almost of hostility in his mind
in consequence of that conversation in Broad Street. "I no longer
want anything on your behalf," the Quaker had seemed to say. "I care
nothing now for your name, or your happiness. I am anxious only for
my child, and as I am told that it will be better that you should not
see her, you must stay away." That the father should be anxious for
his daughter was natural enough. Lord Hampstead could not quarrel
with Zachary Fay. But he taught himself to think that their interests
were at variance with each other. As for Marion, whether she were
ill or whether she were well, he would have had her altogether to
himself.

Gradually there had come upon him the conviction that there was a
real barrier existing between himself and the thing that he desired.
To Marion's own words, while they had been spoken only to himself,
he had given no absolute credit. He had been able to declare to her
that her fears were vain, and that whether she were weak or whether
she were strong, it was her duty to come to him. When they two had
been together his arguments and assurances had convinced at any rate
himself. The love which he had seen in her eyes and had heard from
her lips had been so sweet to him, that their savour had overcome
whatever strength her words possessed. But these protestations, these
assurances that no marriage could be possible, when they reached him
second-hand, as they had done through his sister and through the
Quaker, almost crushed him. He did not dare to tell them that he
would fain marry the girl though she were dying,--that he would
accept any chance or no chance, if he might only be allowed to hold
her in his arms, and tell her that she was all his own. There had
come a blow, he would say to himself, again and again, as he walked
about the grounds at Hendon, there had come a blow, a fatal blow, a
blow from which there could be no recovery