"This is all nonsense, you know, Hammond," he said gravely, "folly—madness, on your part. A week ago, when we thought Trixy an heiress, the case looked very different, you see; then I would have shaken hands with you, and bestowed my blessing upon your virtuous endeavors. But all that is changed now. As far as I can see, we are beggars—literally beggars—without a dollar; and when we get to New York nothing will remain for Trixy and me but to roll up our sleeves and go to work. What we are to work at, Heaven knows; we have come up like the lilies of the field, who toil not, neither do they spin. It is rather late in the day to take lessons in spinning now, but you see there is no help for it. I don't say much, Hammond, but I feel this. I hold a man to be something less than a man who will go through life howling over a loss of this kind. There are worse losses than that of fortune in the world." He paused a moment, and his dreamy eyes looked far out over the crowded city street. "I always thought my father was as rich as Crow—Crae—the rich fellow, you know, they always quote in print. It seemed an impossibility that we could ever be poor. But we are, and there is an end of it. Your family are wealthy, your father has a title; do you think he would listen to this for a moment?"
"My family may go—hang!" burst forth the captain. "What the deuce have they got to do with it. If Trixy is willing—"
"Trixy will not be willing to enter any family on those terms," Trixy's brother said, in that quiet way of his, which could yet be such an obstinate way; "and what I mean to say is this: A marriage for the present is totally and absolutely out of the question. You and she may make love to your heart's content—write letters across the ocean by the bushel, be engaged as fast as you please, and remain constant at long as you like. But marriage—no, no, no!"
That was the end of it. Charley was not to be moved—neither, indeed, on the marriage question, was Trix. "Did Angus think her a wretch—a monster—to desert her poor pa and ma just now, when they wanted her most, and go off with him? Not likely. He might take back his ring if he liked—she would not hold him to his engagement—she was ready and willing to set him free—"
"So Jamie, an' ye dinna wait
Ye canna marry me,"
sang Charley, as Trix broke down here and sobbed. Then with a half smile on his face he went out of the room, and Trixy's tears were dried on Angus Hammond's faithful breast.
Next day, a gray overcast, gloomy day, the ship sailed. Captain Hammond went with them on board, returning in the tender. Trix, leaning on her father's arm, crying behind her veil; Charley, by his mother's side, stood on deck while the tender steamed back to the dock. And there under the gray sky, with the bleak wind blowing, and the ship tossing on the ugly short chop of the river, they took their parting look at the English shore, with but one friendly face to watch them away, and that the ginger-whiskered face of Captain Hammond.
* * * * *
Edith Darrell left Charley Stuart, and returned to the brilliantly-lit drawing room, where her lover and Lady Helena and their friends sat waiting the announcement of dinner. Sir Victor's watchful eyes saw her enter. Sir Victor's loving glance saw the pallor, like the pallor of death, upon her face. She walked steadily over to a chair in the curtained recess of a window. He was held captive by Lady Portia Hampton, and could not join her. A second after there was a sort of sobbing gasp—a heavy fall. Everybody started, and arose in consternation. Miss Darrell had fallen from her chair, and lay on the floor in a dead faint.
Her lover, as pale almost as herself, lifted her in his arms, the cold, beautiful face lying, like death on his shoulder. But it was not death.