“Oh, Heaven!” thought Floy, despairingly.
“This very journey my brother took to Europe,” continued Alva, “was planned by mamma to break him from a fancy he seemed to have for the beautiful Miss Maury of Mount Vernon. We did not admire the girl, and mamma was wild at the thought of having her for a daughter. But Maybelle was angling for him so skillfully that mamma had papa to telegraph him to come home, to go across the sea at a minute’s notice.” She sighed, and added: “You can see from this one incident how resolute mamma can be when roused to action. And as for papa, he always takes sides with her in everything.”
“Perhaps—perhaps they will persuade your brother to desert his love,” breathed Floy, tremulously.
“Perhaps so; or perhaps he will cling to her in spite of all; and in either case he will be unhappy,” returned Alva, not dreaming how cruelly her words stabbed Floy’s loving heart. She continued, sadly enough: “You see, if St. George marries the girl, they will disinherit him, and he will have so little money, poor fellow—having been used to luxury all his life—that he will not know how to live. Poverty will crush him, and perhaps he will regret that he ever saw the girl. Ah, me! Will you ring for lights, please, dear Floy?”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
PRIDE BROUGHT LOW.
St. George Beresford’s precautions that his parents should not know of his illness were useless.
It was not probable that the son of an American millionaire could fall ill in London without the knowledge of the ubiquitous reporters for the American newspapers.
So the first news the Beresfords had of their son’s illness was brought through a special to a New York daily paper.
Something seemed to snap like a too hardly strained cord in the mother’s heart when she read the paragraph and she fell in a heavy swoon to the floor.