the--the--"

"The fortunate person whom Alwyn has enriched at so slight a cost?
Yes. Do not grudge me my good fortune in this. Thou hast nobler
treasures, methinks, to bestow on another!"

"My good lord!"

"Nay, I must not distress thee. And the young gentleman has a fair
face; may it bespeak a true heart!"

These words gave Sibyll an emotion of strange delight. They seemed
spoken sadly, they seemed to betoken a jealous sorrow; they awoke the
strange, wayward woman-feeling, which is pleased at the pain that
betrays the woman's influence: the girl's rosy lips smiled
maliciously. Hastings watched her, and her face was so radiant with
that rare gleam of secret happiness,--so fresh, so young, so pure, and
withal so arch and captivating, that hackneyed and jaded as he was in
the vulgar pursuit of pleasure, the sight moved better and tenderer
feelings than those of the sensualist. "Yes," he muttered to
himself, "there are some toys it were a sin to sport with and cast
away amidst the broken rubbish of gone passions!"

He turned to the table, and wrote the order of admission to Henry's
prison, and as he gave it to Sibyll, he said, "Thy young gallant, I
see, is at the court now. It is a perilous ordeal, and especially to
one for whom the name of Nevile opens the road to advancement and
honour. Men learn betimes in courts to forsake Love for Plutus, and
many a wealthy lord would give his heiress to the poorest gentleman
who claims kindred to the Earl of Salisbury and Warwick."