e to my assistance."

"Any stranger would have taken your part. The footman would, if you had
asked him. But then, James is not your father."

"It seems a very small thing to be bidden to leave the room. But I will
never expose myself to a repetition of it."

"Quite right. But what do you mean to do? for, after all, though
parental love is an imposition, parental authority is a fact."

"I will get married."

"Out of the frying pan into the fire! Certainly, if you are resolved to
marry, the present is as good as another time, and more convenient. But
there must be some legal formalities to go through. You cannot turn into
the first church you meet, and be married off-hand."

"Ned must find out all that. I am sadly disappointed and disilluded,
Nelly."

"Time will cure you as it does everybody; and you will be the better for
being wiser. By the bye, what did Sholto mean about Mrs. Fairfax?"

"I dont know."

"She has evidently been telling him a parcel of lies. Do you remember
her hints about him yesterday at lunch? I have not the least doubt that
she has told him you are frantically in love with him. She as good as
told you the same about him."

"Oh! she is not capable of doing such a thing."

"Isnt she? We shall see."

"I dont know what to think," said Marian, despondently. "I used to
believe that both you and Ned thought too little of other people; but it
seems now that the world is nothing but a morass of wickedness and
falsehood. And Sholto, too! Who would have believed that he could break
out in that coarse way? Do you remember the day that Fleming, the
coachman, lost his temper with Auntie down at the Cottage. Sholto was
exactly like that; not a bit more refined or dignified."

"Rather less so, because Fleming was in the right. Let us go to bed. We
can do nothing to-night, but fret, and wish for to-morrow. Better get to
sleep. Resentment does not keep me awake, I can vouch for that: I got
well broken in to it when I was a child. I heard Uncle Reginald going to
his room some time ago. I am getting sleepy, too, though I feel the
better for the excitement."

"Very well. To bed be it," said Marian. But she did not sleep at all as
well as Nelly.

CHAPTER X

Next morning Mr. Lind rose before his daughter was astir, and went to
his club, where he breakfasted. He then went to the offices in Queen
Victoria Street. Finding the board-room unoccupied, he sat down there,
and said to one of the clerks: