"Do you recognise what you were born to be?" said Halifax to him. "Not only a nobleman, but a gentleman; not only a gentleman, but a man--man made in the image of God. Would to heaven that any poor word of mine could make you feel all that you are--and all that you might be!"
"You mean, Mr. Halifax, what I might have been--now it is too late."
"There is no such word as 'too late' in the wide world--nay, not in the universe."
Lord Ravenel for a time sat silent; then he rose to go, and thanked Mrs. Halifax for all her kindness in a voice choked with emotion.
"For your husband, I owe him more than kindness, as perhaps I may prove some day; if not, try to believe the best of me you can. Good-bye!"
It was not many weeks after this that the old Earl of Luxmore died in France, and it then became known that his son, who now succeeded to the title, had voluntarily given up his claims on the estate in order to pay the heavy debts of his worthless father.
The home at Beechwood had lost another inmate--for Edmund was now married--when Guy, first going to Paris, had later sailed for America. Years passed by, and he became a successful merchant in Boston, and then one day he wrote home to say he was coming back to the Old Country, and was bringing with him his partner.
The ship in which Guy and his friend sailed from America was wrecked, and Ursula, in her grief at the supposed loss of her eldest son, seemed to be wearing away, when one day a strange gentleman stood in the doorway--tall, brown, and bearded--and asked to see Miss Halifax. Maud just glanced at him, then rose, and said somewhat coldly, "Will you be seated?"
"Maud, don't you know me? Where is my mother?"
The return of the son whom she had given up for dead brought joy again to the heart of Ursula, and her health seemed to revive, but it was clear that her days were now uncertain. Scarcely less than the delight in Guy's return was the discovery that his partner was none other than the new Earl of Luxmore, who, as plain Mr. William Ravenel, had by his life in America proved John Halifax was right when he said it was not too late for him to model his life on lines of true manliness. He had, indeed, become all that John had desired of him--a man and a gentleman--so that Maud was, after all, to be the Countess of Luxmore.