‘But you must not refuse my cheque.’

’Indeed I must, Lady Maulevrier.  I am not quite such a pauper as you think me.’

’But fifty pounds and the expenses of the journey; an outlay altogether unexpected on your part.  I begin to fear that you are very reckless.  A spendthrift shall never marry my granddaughter, with my consent.’

‘I have never yet spent above half my income.’

Lady Maulevrier looked at him in wonderment and perplexity.  Had the young man gone suddenly out of his mind, overwhelmed by the greatness of his bliss?

‘But I thought you were poor,’ she faltered.

’It has pleased you to think so, dear Lady Maulevrier; but I have more than enough for all my wants, and I shall be able to provide a fitting home for my Mary, when you can spare her to preside over her own establishment.’

‘Establishment’ seemed rather a big word, but Lady Maulevrier supposed that in this case it meant a cook and housemaid, with perhaps later on a boy in buttons, to break windows and block the pantry sink with missing teaspoons.

‘Well, Mr. Hammond, this is quite an agreeable surprise,’ she said, after a brief silence.  ’I really thought you were poor—­as poor as a young man of gentlemanlike habits could be, and yet exist.  Perhaps you will wonder why, thinking this, I brought myself to consent to your marriage with my granddaughter.’

‘It was a great proof of your confidence in me, or in Providence,’ replied Hammond, smiling.

’It was no such thing.  I was governed by a sentiment—­a memory.  It was my love for the dead which softened my heart towards you, John Hammond.’

‘Indeed!’ he murmured, softly.

’There was but one man in this world I ever fondly loved—­the love of my youth—­my dearest and best, in the days when my heart was fresh and innocent and unambitious.  That man was Ronald Hollister, afterwards Lord Hartfield.  And yours is the only face that ever recalled his to my mind.  It is but a vague likeness—­a look now and then; but slight as that likeness is it has been enough to make my heart yearn towards you, as the heart of a mother to her son.’

John Hammond knelt beside the sofa, and bent his handsome face over the pale face on the pillow, imprinting such a kiss as a son might have given.  His eyes were full of tears.

’Dear Lady Maulevrier, think that it is the spirit of the dead which blesses you for your fidelity to old memories,’ he said, tenderly.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

BY SPECIAL LICENCE.

After that interview with John Hammond all the arrangements for the marriage were planned by Lady Maulevrier with a calm and business-like capacity which seemed extraordinary in one so frail and helpless.  For a little while after Hammond left her she remained lost in a reverie, deeply affected by the speech and manner of her granddaughter’s lover, as he gave her that first kiss of duty and affection, the affection of one who in that act declared the allegiance of a close and holy bond.