sweetest of Susannas to-night."

"Oh, _good_-night."

"By the bye," said Conolly, returning, "this must be the Mr. Duke Lind
who is going to marry Lady Constance Carbury, my noble pupil's sister."

"I am sure it matters very little whom he marries."

"If he will pay us a visit here, and witness the working of perfect
frankness without affection, and perfect liberty without refinement, he
may find reason to conclude that it matters a good deal. Good-night."




CHAPTER II


Marian Lind lived at Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, with her father,
the fourth son of a younger brother of the Earl of Carbury. Mr. Reginald
Harrington Lind, at the outset of his career, had no object in life
except that of getting through it as easily as possible; and this he
understood so little how to achieve that he suffered himself to be
married at the age of nineteen to a Lancashire cotton spinner's heiress.
She bore him three children, and then eloped with a professor of
spiritualism, who deserted her on the eve of her fourth confinement, in
the course of which she caught scarlet fever and died. Her child
survived, but was sent to a baby farm and starved to death in the usual
manner. Her husband, disgusted by her behavior (for she had been