answer. "Don't speak to me in that way again, mamma."

Meanwhile Merwyn was a close observer of all that was taking place,
and was coming to what he regarded as an heroic resolution. Except
as circumstances evoked an outburst of passion, he yielded to habit,
and coolly kept his eye on the main chances of his life, and these
meant what he craved most.

Two influences had been at work upon his mind during the summer.
One resulted from his independent possession of large property. He
had readily comprehended the hints thrown out by his lawyer that,
if he remained in New York, the times gave opportunity for a
rapid increase in his property, and the thought of achieving large
wealth for himself, as his father had done before him, was growing
in attractiveness. His indolent nature began to respond to vital
American life, and he asked himself whether fortune-making in his
own land did not promise more than fortune-seeking among English
heiresses; moreover, he saw that his mother's devotion to the South
increased daily, and that feeling at the North was running higher
and becoming more and more sharply defined. As a business man in
New York his property would be safe beyond a doubt, but if he were
absent and affiliating with those known to be hostile to the North,
dangerous complications might arise.

Almost unconsciously to himself at first the second influence was
gaining daily in power. As he became convinced that Marian was
not an ordinary girl, ready for a summer flirtation with a wealthy
stranger, he began to give her more serious thought, to study her
character, and acknowledge to himself her superiority. With every
interview the spell of her fascination grew stronger, until at last