“I’ve come to take back what I said this morning,” he said, in his dry voice.  “I was hasty, and your—­insensate folly in giving up the money upset me.  I have been talking the matter over with Maude, and we have agreed to—­to—­continue the engagement.”

Stafford lit a couple of candles and the scant light fell upon the faces of the three, the white one of the woman, the stern and set one of Stafford, and the hard and impassive one of Mr. Falconer.

“Of course a large sum of money will have to be found; and I must find it.  It will be settled upon Maude—­with, of course, a suitable allowance for a nobleman of your rank—­”

“One moment,” said Stafford, very quietly.  “Before you go any further, I have to correct a misapprehension, Mr. Falconer.  I do not intend to use my title.”

“What!” exclaimed Falconer, his face growing darker.

“I intend dropping the earldom,” said Stafford.

“But I don’t intend you should,” retorted Falconer, brutally.  “If I consent to my daughter’s marrying a pauper—­”

“A pauper is one who begs,” said poor Stafford, his face white as marble.  “I have not yet begged—­”

“Stafford!” cried Maude.  Then she swung on her father.  “Why do you speak to him—­to him—­like this?—­Stafford, you will yield—­”

“In everything, in every way, but this,” he said, with the same ominous quietude.  “If you are content to drop the title, to share the life of a poor and an ordinary working-man—­as I hope to be—­”

He held out his hand, and she would have taken it, clung to it, but her father strode between them, and with a harsh laugh, exclaimed: 

“You fool!  Don’t you see that he is wanting to get rid of you, that he is only too glad of the excuse?  Great God! have you no touch of womanliness in you, no sense of shame—­”

She swept him aside with a gesture, and advancing to Stafford, looked straight into his eyes.

“Is—­is it true?” she asked hoarsely.  “Tell me!  Is what he says true?  That—­that rather than marry me you would go out into the world penniless, to earn your living—­you?  Answer!  Do—­do you love me?”

His eyes dropped, his teeth clenched, and the moment of silence hung heavy in the room.  She turned from him, her hand going to her brow with a gesture of weariness and despair.

“Let us go,” she said to her father.  “He does not love me—­he never did.  I thought that perhaps in time—­in time—­”

The sight of her humiliation was more than Stafford could bear.  He strode to her and laid his hand on hers.

“Wait—­Maude,” he said, hoarsely.  “I must lay the title aside; I cannot accept your father’s money.  I must work, as other and better men have done, are doing.  If you will wait until I have a home to offer you—­”

She turned to him, her face glowing, her eyes flashing.

“I will go with you now, now—­this moment, to poverty—­to peril, anywhere.  Oh, Stafford, can’t you see, can’t you value the love I offer you?”