The few days he had been absent from her had taught this young man how very completely he was in love, and he was actually asking himself why they should not be married at once!
"What's the use of waiting?" he mused; "I shall never be better off. We might just as well be married now——." Then a reflection cut across his roseate visions, and, as Hamlet says, 'gave him pause;' he was fearfully in debt, and though Mr. Levison hadn't turned up with the bill, and seemed more inclined to lend him more money than take any from him, he, Yorke, knew the reason. The money lenders all depended upon his marrying an heiress, and he knew—and his face flushed as he thought of it—that they one and all expected him to marry Lady Eleanor Dallas, and relied upon it.
The moment they heard that he had married what they and the rest of the world, in its language of contempt, would call a pauper, they would swoop down upon him like a flock of kites, and——.
He sat up in the railway carriage and rubbed his forehead.
Couldn't he ask Dolph to lend—give—him the money to pay his debts? Well, he could ask him, and no doubt the duke would do it—if he approved of Yorke's marrying Leslie. But would he approve? Somehow Yorke felt doubtful.
"I might try him," he thought, and he pondered over it until the train reached Northcliffe, and then suddenly an alternative course occurred to him, an idea which flashed upon him suddenly, and sent the blood rushing to his face.
Why shouldn't he and Leslie be married secretly? They might go away, leave England, and settle down in some Continental place quietly until he had screwed enough money out of his income to pay his debts, and then they might proclaim their marriage to the whole world.
His heart beat hopefully, and he was so absorbed in his plans and schemes that he did not notice that the tall lady in black got out at Northcliffe; indeed, he could not have seen her unless he had looked back—which he did not do—for she did not get out until the rest of the passengers had alighted, and then kept in the background until the station was clear.
Yorke got a fly at once and had himself driven to Portmaris, and as the ancient vehicle rattled down the street he looked eagerly at the windows of Sea View. But Leslie was out, and with a little pang of disappointment Yorke ran up the stairs of Marine Villa.
The duke was sitting in his chair, his head resting on his hands, and Yorke saw at once that it was a 'bad afternoon' with the invalid. The duke raised his head, with a transient smile of welcome on his pale face.