at least not to think ill of me for wanting to help you."

He sat still for a moment and continued to stroke his thigh.

"Marion," he began abruptly, and then paused as if to brace himself.
"Marion, I hope you understand what I'm asking you to do. I'm asking you
to marry me. But not to be my wife. I never wouldn't bother you for
that. I'm getting on in life, you see, so that I can make the promise
with some chance of keeping it. And besides, there's more than that to
it. How," he asked, lifting his head and speaking mincingly, "should I
presume to go where Sir Harry's been? I would never ask you to be a wife
to me. Just to accept the protection of my name, that's all I ask of
you."

They sat for a while in the embrowned sunshine of the dusty room.

He rose and stood over her, drooping his sleek head benevolently. "Ah,
well," he said, "I'd best leave you alone. God knows I never meant to
intrude on you. Perhaps you would take a little doze now, and after tea
I'll take you home." He looked on her moistly, tenderly. "Think kindly
of me if you dream." Some emotion coagulated his voice to a thick, slow
flow. "You'll be the only woman who ever has thought of me in her dreams
if you do. I've never had anything to do with women all my life. You
see, I know I've got an ugly mug. I wouldn't dare to make love to any
woman in case I saw--what I've seen in your face--what I saw in your
face that night I came out on you from the belvedere. Oh, I don't blame
you, Miss Marion. You're young--you're beautiful. You've had a real
gentleman for your sweetheart. But I don't see why I shouldn't help you.
Still, if you don't see it so...." He sighed, and brought his hands
together and bowed over them. His eyes passed deliberately over her
matronly body, as if he knew his thoughts about her were so delicate
that no suspicion of indelicacy could arise out of his contact with her.
"Poor little Miss Marion," he murmured in an undertone, and wheeled
about and padded to the door. He turned there and stood, his body
neckless and sloping like a seal's, and said softly, "And don't think it
was me who put Lady Teresa up to coming down to Yaverland's End
to-morrow morning. It is her ladyship's own idea. I said to her, 'Leave
the poor girl alone.' I have always said to her, 'Leave the poor girl
alone.'" His voice faded. He moved vaporously out of the room.

One is too harsh to one's dead self. One regards it as the executor and
residuary legatee of a