'If I wished it a year ago, I could only wish it the more now,' said
the Earl. 'But how is this?--I fully believed you committed to Miss
Conway.'

'Miss Conway! Miss Conway!' burst out Louis, in a frenzy. 'Because
Jem Frost was in love with her himself, he fancied every one else
must be the same, and now he will be married to her before Christmas,
so that's disposed of. As to my feeling for her a particle, a shred
of what I do for Mary, it was a mere fiction--a romance, an
impossibility.'

'I do not understand you, Louis. Why did you not find this out
before?'

'Mrs. Ponsonby called it my duty to test my feelings, and I have
tested them. That one is a beautiful poet's dream. Mary is a woman,
the only woman I can ever love. Not an hour but I have felt it, and
now, father, what does she mean?'

'She means, poor girl, what only her own scrupulous delicacy could
regard as an objection, but what renders me still more desirous to
have a right to protect her. The cause of our return--'

'How? I thought her father was dead.'

'Far worse. At Valparaiso we met Robson, the confidential agent. I
learnt from him that Mr. Ponsonby had hardly waited for her mother's
death to marry a Limenian, a person whom everything pointed out as
unfit to associate with his daughter. Even Robson, cautious as he