"You have the right that I ask you to stay," observed Mr. Singleton. "He has no other than my invitation, and that will be withdrawn as soon as I see him. Like yourself, I am done with him now forever. I have borne much from him and hoped much from him; but I see that the first was useless, and the last without any rational ground. This offense—his conduct to you—I will never forgive. But I hope, my dear, that you will suffer me to make what atonement for it I can. I consider you as much my adopted daughter as if this marriage on which I set my heart had taken place."
"You are very good," replied Marion. A vision passed before her as she spoke of all that this might mean; but she felt strangely dead toward it, as if already the fortune she coveted had been robbed of half its lustre.
"Stay with me, then," said Mr. Singleton. "I can not part with you, if Brian can. I want your society while I live, and I will provide for you liberally when I die. Will you stay?—is that agreed upon?"
"Yes," she answered. "If you care for me I will stay. Nobody else does care."
Then suddenly her proud composure gave way. She burst into tears, and made her escape from the room.
Perhaps those tears hardened Mr. Singleton's resolve, or perhaps it needed no hardening. After a few minutes he rang his bell, and sent the servant who answered it to summon Brian Earle to him.
The latter was on the point of leaving the house when he received the message, but he immediately obeyed it, saying to himself as he laid down his hat, "As well now as later." For he knew perfectly what was before him; and Mr. Singleton's icy manner was no surprise to him when he entered the room where Marion had brought her story so short a time before.
"I am informed by Miss Lynde," said Mr. Singleton, severely, "that your engagement to her is at an end, for the reason that you refuse to yield your wishes to hers as well as to mine, and she very wisely declines to countenance your folly and selfishness by sacrificing her life to it. Is this true?"
"Perfectly true," replied the young man, calmly. "Miss Lynde thinks me not worth accepting without your fortune. I regret to say that this, to my mind, betrays a nature so mercenary that I am not sorry a conclusive test should have arisen, and ended an arrangement which certainly would not be for the happiness of either of us."
"That is how it appears to you, is it?" said Mr. Singleton. "Well, let me tell you that, to me, your conduct is so utterly without reason or excuse, so shameful in its selfish disregard of everyone's wishes but your own, that I finally cast off all regard for you. Go your way, study the art to which you have sacrificed not only me but the woman to whom you pledged your faith; but remember that you have lost your last chance with me. Not a sixpence of my money will ever go to you."