om she also paid
several visits, but the senior partner's cold eye and cynical smile
checked her heroics.

"You will not be the loser by poor McKay's removal," he said, with
brutal frankness, one day when she had rather overdone her part.

"As if I thought of that!" she replied, with supreme indignation.

"It is impossible for you not to think of it, my dear madam. It would
not be human nature. Why shouldn't you? Mr. McKay was no relation."

"He was my dear dead husband's devoted friend. Nursed him after his
wound--"

"I remember to have heard that, and indeed everything that is good, of
Mr. McKay. I feel sure he would have made an excellent Earl of
Essendine; more's the pity."

"I trust my son, if he inherits, will worthily maintain the credit of
the house."

"So do I, my dear madam," said old Mr. Burt, with a bow that made the
speech a less doubtful compliment.

"When will it be settled? Why do they hesitate? Why delay?" she said
to herself passionately, as she went homewards to Thistle Grove. Her
friend Mr. Hobson was there, waiting for her; and she repeated the
question with a fierce anxiety that proved how closely it concerned
her.

"How impatient you grow! Like every woman. Everything must be done at
once."

"I am not safe yet. I begin to doubt."

"Can't you trust me? I have assured you it will end as you wish. When
have I disappointed you, Lady Lydstone?"

She started at the sound of this name, once familiar, but surrounded
now by memories at once painful and terrible.

"It is the rule in your English peerage that when a son becomes a
great peer, and the mother is only a commoner, to give her one of the
titles. Your Queen does it by prerogative."

"I might have been Lady Lydstone by right, if I had waited," she said
slowly.

"And you repent it? Bah! it is too late. Be satisfied. You will be
rich, a great lady, respected--"

She made a gesture of dissent.

"Yes; respected. Great ladies always are. You can marry again--whom
you please; me, for instance--"

Again the gesture: dissent mixed with unmistakable disgust.

"You are not too flattering, Cyprienne. Do not presume on my
good-nature, and remember--"

"What, pray?"

"What you owe me. I am entitled to claim my reward. You must repay me
some day."

"By marrying you?"

Her voice, as usual, began to tremble when she found herself in
antagonism with this man.

"If that be the price I ask. Why not? We ought to be happy together.
We