“Why a necessity, dear Evelyn, why go at all?  You certainly can never feel to any relative as you do to my father and yours.”

“Your father does not find me as important to his happiness as he once did, Miriam.  You have absorbed his whole affection of late; even Mabel, once his darling and plaything, is put aside.”

“He surrendered her to me again, Evelyn, when I returned; this is all, believe me.  He loves, he esteems you as much as ever; he consults you in all his arrangements.  He has made you the mistress of his house; your judgment, your advice, are paramount with, him as to all matters of outlay; and, Evelyn, suffer me to speak to you on one subject of great delicacy—­sister!  I must.  Whenever you marry from this house, understand well that you shall not go empty-handed.”

“Fortune is not his to bestow,” she responded, “and large charities have absorbed, I know, much of his yearly income, princely as that is.  Besides, he reinvests all that remains from that source for Mabel, as I know.  I feel assured he will provide for me, but it must be in a very small way, and I must go to England and make my establishment there.”

“Would you marry for money, Evelyn?” I asked gravely.  “O sister, can you conceive of no higher happiness than this?”

“I can,” she said with emotion, while her lips blanched to the hue of ashes.  “I have dreamed such a dream in days past, but now the dark reality alone remains and sweeps all before it.  I shall embrace my first eligible offer regardless of feeling, and I prefer to cast my destiny with my own people, however estranged they may be.  Certainly, this letter is not very affectionate, nor even a courteous one from so near a relative,” and she placed in my hand the cold and supercilious note of the Earl of Pomfret, containing a permission to visit his castle, rather than invitation.

“Yet you will go, Evelyn?”

“Miriam, I must go.  I should go mad were I to stay here, or die in the struggle.”

“Sister, what can this be?  Evelyn, hear me:  I swear to you, on the day of my majority, to endow you richly in your own right.  It is independence you want—­you shall have it.  My father will consent to this I know, and consider it no more than your due.”

“You are kind,” she said; “generous, very.  You are not like your mother’s people in that respect, such as they are in these degenerate days, at least.  She herself was unlike them, I have heard, for her hand was princely.  But, Miriam, I could not receive such obligations from you—­ought not.  Besides—­your husband!”

“Ah, Evelyn, there is nothing he would refuse me—­nothing.”

A gloomy mockery transfused itself into her eyes, her lips were fixed in a suppressed and sneering smile.  Incredulity was written on her aspect.  Her face at that moment was very repulsive to contemplate.

“You do not believe in men,” I said, coldly.  “I have always remarked it; yet there are some worthy of confidence, believe me.”