Rylton wasn’t in the least annoyed by this letter; indeed, it somewhat puzzled him to find that he rather liked it, and he put it away in his private drawer, amongst the papers he cared for.

Margaret had taken Tita to Rome, and thence to Constantinople.  She had kept her moving about from place to place, hoping to clear her mind of all past deadly thoughts by constant change.  She had a hope that by breaking off all old associations, the girl might come to think of the past—­and Maurice—­in a more gentle, lenient light, and thus be prepared for a reconciliation in the future.  To Margaret it seemed terrible that these two young people should be for ever apart—­their lives ruined, their social position smirched.

A long separation from her own country—­her own circle—­might lead Tita to desire a return to it—­a return to her husband and her home.

Alas! not to the old home, however.  She might desire a return to that with all her soul, yet nothing would come of it.  It was gone!  Gone past recall!  When Tita’s affairs were wound up, it was found that all should be sold, not only her other two houses, but the old home—­the one beloved of her childhood.  Oakdean came to the hammer a month ago!

Indeed, out of all her large fortune only a bare £300 a year was saved for the poor little heiress of yesterday!  When Tita was assured that even this small sum was honourably hers, she had insisted on her lawyers writing and offering half of it to Maurice—­an offer I need hardly say refused.  Maurice declined, naturally, but, unfortunately, very rudely, to touch a penny of hers.

So far Tita was protected from actual poverty—­poverty was much closer to Maurice at this time than to her; and, indeed, being with Margaret, who loved her from her heart, and would hear no word of her leaving her, hardly felt the change in her position.  The loss of the old home—­of Oakdean—­had been, so far as Margaret could see, the one thing that had deeply affected her.  Of Maurice she would hardly talk at all, but of Oakdean she would talk by the hour.

The wheels of law grind slowly, and it was not until last month that the actual sale of her beautiful home took place.  The news came to her when she and Margaret were at Berne on their homeward way, and she had quite broken down.  She had cried terribly over it night and day—­so much, indeed, that Margaret, who had been astonished at her strength of mind over her loss of fortune, now began to regard her as devoid of it altogether.  For days and days she fretted, eating scarcely anything, caring for nothing.  It was when Margaret was almost in despair about her that she grew better, and let herself be amused by the ordinary occurrences of the day.

As for Rylton, these past six months had been the fullest of his life.  Time had made him his shuttlecock.  Fortune had played with him.  It had caught him when he was up in the world and flung him to the ground, and after that had seized him afresh, and sent him flying to a higher altitude than he had ever known before.  As a fact, three months had not elapsed after his parting with his wife when his uncle (a comparatively young man) had died of typhoid fever, leaving him all his property.