'She is very kind, very sweet. She has changed so much of late.'

Mary went with him to the door of her ladyship's sitting-room, and there left him to go in alone. She went to the library—that room over which a gloomy shadow seemed to have hung ever since that awful winter afternoon when Mary found Lady Maulevrier lying on the floor in the twilight. But it was a noble room, and in her studious hours Mary loved to sit here, walled round with books, and able to consult or dip into as many volumes as she liked. To-day, however, her mind was not attuned to study. She sat with a volume of Macaulay open before her: but her thoughts were not with the author. She was wondering what those two were saying in the room overhead, and finding all attempts at reading futile, she let her head sink back upon the cushion of her deep luxurious chair, and sat with her dreamy eyes fixed on the summer landscape and her thoughts with her lover.

Lady Maulevrier looked very wan and tired in the bright morning light, when Mr. Hammond seated himself beside her sofa. The change in her appearance since the spring was more marked to-day than it had seemed to him last night in the dim lamplight. Yes, there was need here for a speedy settlement of all earthly matters. The traveller was nearing the mysterious end of the journey. The summons might come at any hour.

'Mr. Hammond, I feel a confidence in your integrity, your goodness of heart, and high principle which I never thought I could feel for a man of whom I know so little,' began Lady Maulevrier, gravely. 'All I know of you or your antecedents is what my grandson has told me—and I must say that the information so given has been very meagre. And yet I believe in you—and yet I am going to trust you, wholly, blindly, implicitly—and I am going to give you my granddaughter, ever so much sooner than I intended to give her to you. Soon, very soon, if you will have her!'

'I will have her to-morrow, if there is time to get a special licence,' exclaimed Hammond, bending down to kiss the dowager's hand, radiant with delight.

'You shall marry her very soon, if you like, marry her by special licence, in this room. I should like to see your wedding. I have a strange impatience to behold one of my granddaughters happily married, to know that her future is secure, that come weal, come woe, she is safe in the protection of a brave true man. I am not scared by the idea of a little poverty. That is often the best education for youth. But while you and I are alone we may as well talk about ways and means. Perhaps you may hardly feel prepared to take upon yourself the burden of a wife this year.'

'As well this year as next. I am not afraid.'

'Young men are so rash. However, as long as I live your responsibilities will be only nominal. This house will be Mary's home, and yours whenever you are able to occupy it. Of course I should not like to interfere with your professional efforts—but if you are cultivating literature,—why books can be written at Fellside better than in London. This lakeland of ours has been the nursery of deathless writers. But I feel that my days are numbered—and when I am dead—well death is always a cause of change and trouble of some kind, and Mary will profit very little by my death. The bulk of my fortune is left to Lesbia. I have taught her to consider herself my heiress; and it would be unjust to alter my will.'

'Pray do not dream of such a thing—there is no need—Mary will be rich enough,' exclaimed Hammond, hastily.

'With five hundred a year and the fruits of your industry,' said Lady Maulevrier. 'Yes, yes, with modest aspirations and simple habits, people can live happily, honourably, on a few hundreds a year. And if you really mean to devote yourself to literature, and do not mind burying yourself alive in this lake district until you have made your name as a writer, why the problem of ways and means will be easily solved.'