“After what he said to you, you mean!” bursts in Rylton violently, losing all control over his temper.  “You were going with him——­”

"Maurice!" Margaret has stepped between them.  “How dare you speak to her like that?” says she, her calm, kind face transfigured.  “I hope to see you ashamed of yourself to-morrow.  Be quiet, Tita. I will look after you.”  She turns again hurriedly to Rylton, who is looking very white and breathing heavily, with his eyes immovably fixed on Tita.  “She will come with me—­to my house to-morrow,” says Margaret.  “You will, Tita?”

“Oh yes, to you!” cries Tita, running to her, and flinging herself into her arms.  “You are the only one who—­of his family”—­with a baleful glance at Rylton over her shoulder—­“who has been kind to me!”

CHAPTER XVI.

HOW MAURICE TELLS HIS MOTHER OF THE GREAT FIASCO; AND HOW SHE RECEIVES THE NEWS.

The guests have all gone!  The morning train had swallowed up the Hescotts, and the eleven o’clock had disposed of the rest.  Only the Dowager Lady Rylton and Margaret still remain.

The latter has decided on going by the evening train and taking Tita with her, deeming it best to separate husband and wife for a little while, until the calamity be overpast for a few weeks, at all events.  As for Tessie, she had come with a determination to linger on until Christmas with her son and his wife, though asked for three weeks only; and it is her son’s pleasing task to be obliged now to explain to her why and wherefore she must go back at once to the old home—­to The Place—­to the old home partially saved from ruin by his unhappy marriage, and now doomed to a sure destruction because of the loss of the fortune that had been the primary motive in the making of that marriage.

Rylton got through the telling of his lamentable tale more easily than he could have supposed possible.  Whilst walking up the stairs to his mother’s room, he had tried to compose certain forms of speech that might let the whole affair “down easy,” to quote from the modern English language, but had failed utterly.  Yet, when on the spot, he had run glibly through it all—­coldly—­almost without feeling.  And his mother had heard him as coldly, until she learned all hope was at an end—­as far as Tita’s thousands were concerned.

Then she gave way to hysterics!

And even now, when, by the help of a wet sponge and a maid and a bottle of champagne, he has pulled her through, sufficient at all events to be able to talk rationally, she is still in the very lowest depths of despair.

“And to think you should have sacrificed yourself for a mere ‘person’ like that!  A little”—­sob—­“wretched nobody.  Oh! if your father could only see you now!  A creature of no family, no manners, no——­”

“Who are you talking of, mother?  My father?”