And as the car clattered he feasted on the white thin face and the grey allurements of her eyes.  But if she weren’t at home.

He was shown upstairs.  Mother and daughter were alone, talking over the fire in the drawing-room.  Nothing could be more propitious, but his fears returned to him, and when he strove to explain the lateness of his visit his face had again grown suddenly haggard and worn.  Violet exchanged glances, and said in looks, if not in words:  ’It is clear they have been hunting him pretty closely to-day.’

‘I must apologize,’ he said, ’for calling on you at such an hour; I really did not think it was so late, but the fact is I was rather anxious to see. . . .’

‘But won’t you sit down, Lord Kilcarney?’ said Violet.  ’I assure you we never go to bed before twelve, and sometimes we sit up here until one—­don’t we, mamma?’

Mrs. Scully smiled jocosely, and the Marquis sat down.  In an instant his fate was decided.  Overcome by the girl’s frail sweetness, by the pellucid gaiety of her grey eyes, he surrendered; and his name and fortune fluttered into her lap, helplessly as a blown leaf.  He said: 

’I came to see you to-night . . .  I took the liberty of calling on you at this late hour, because things had occurred that . . . well, I mean . . . you must have observed that I was attached to you.  I don’t know if you guessed it, but the fact is that I never cared for anyone as I do for you, and I felt I could bear with uncertainty no longer, and that I must come to-night, and ask you if you will have me.’

Violet raised her eyes.

‘Say yes,’ murmured the Marquis, and it seemed to him that in the words life had fallen from his lips.

‘Yes,’ was the answer, and he clasped the thin hand she extended to him.

’Ah, how happy you have made me, I never thought such honours were in store for me,’ exclaimed Mrs. Scully.  The discipline of years was lost in a moment; and, reverting to her long-buried self, she clasped the Marquis to her agitated bosom.  Violet looked annoyed, ashamed; and Mrs. Scully, whom excitement had stripped of all her grand manners, said: 

‘And now, me dear children, I’ll leave you to yerselves.’

The lovers sat side by side.  Violet thought of the great love she had inspired, and the Marquis of the long years of happiness that would—­that must now be his, of the frail grace that as a bland odour seemed to float about his beloved.  And now that she was his, he would have her know that his love of her rose out of his deepest sense of soul; but words were weak:  he seemed to be tongue-tied.

‘Where did you dine to-night?’ she said suddenly.

‘With the Bartons.’

He told her everything—­of the proposal and the invitation to Brookfield.

‘And are you going down to Galway to stay with them?’

‘Of course not.  How can you ask such a question?’