?'

'Yes; to Henrietta Carbury. She has not accepted it. She has refused
me twice. But I still have hopes of success. Perhaps I have no right
to hope, but I do. I tell it you just as it is. Everything in life to
me depends upon it. I think I may count upon your sympathy.'

'Why did you not tell me before?' said Paul Montague in a hoarse
voice.

Then there had come a sudden and rapid interchange of quick speaking
between the men, each of them speaking the truth exactly, each of them
declaring himself to be in the right and to be ill-used by the other,
each of them equally hot, equally generous, and equally unreasonable.
Montague at once asserted that he also loved Henrietta Carbury. He
blurted out his assurance in the baldest and most incomplete manner,
but still in such words as to leave no doubt. No;--he had not said a
word to her. He had intended to consult Roger Carbury himself,--should
have done so in a day or two,--perhaps on that very day had not Roger
spoken to him. 'You have neither of you a shilling in the world,' said
Roger; 'and now you know what my feelings are you must abandon it.'
Then Montague declared that he had a right to speak to Miss Carbury.
He did not suppose that Miss Carbury cared a straw about him. He had
not the least reason to think that she did. It was altogether
impossible. But he had a right to his chance. That chance was all the
world to him. As to money,--he would not admit that he was a pauper,
and, moreover, he might earn an income as well as other men. Had
Carbury told him that the young lady had shown the slightest intention
to receive his, Carbury's, addresses, he, Paul, would at once have
disappeared from the scene. But as it was not so, he would not say
that he would abandon his hope.

The scene lasted for above an hour. When it was ended, Paul Montague
packed up all his clothes and was driven away to the railway station
by Roger himself, without seeing either of the ladies. There had been
very hot words between the men, but the last words which Roger spoke
to the other on the railway platform were not quarrelsome in their
nature. 'God bless you, old fellow,' he said, pressing Paul's hands.
Paul's eyes were full of tears, and he replied only by returning the
pressure.

Paul Montague's father and mother had long been dead. The father had
been a barrister in London, having perhaps some small fortune of his
own. He had, at any rate, left to this son, who was one among others,
a