She folds the soft silken curtains round her slender figure, and, hidden therein, still laughs aloud with a wild passion of mirth.

“It is you who are foolish,” cries Margaret, with some agitation.

“I?” She lets the curtains go; they fall in a sweep behind her.  She looks out at Margaret, still laughing.  Her face is like ashes.  “You speak too strongly,” says she.

“Do you think I could speak too strongly?” asks Margaret, looking intently at her.  It is a questioning glance.  “You!  Do you think Maurice ought to ask this poor, ignorant girl to marry him?  Do you advise him to take this step?”

“Why, it appears he must take some step,” says Marian.  “Why not this?”

Margaret goes close to her and speaks in so low a tone that Lady Rylton cannot hear her.

“His honour, is that nothing to you?” says she.

“To me?  What have I got to do with his honour?” says Mrs. Bethune, with a little expressive gesture.

“Oh, Marian!” says Miss Knollys.

She half turns away as if in disgust, but Marian follows her and catches her sleeve.

“You mean——­” says she.

“Must I explain?  With his heart full of you, do you think he should marry this girl?”

“Oh, his heart!” says Mrs. Bethune.  “Has he a heart?  Dear Margaret, don’t be an enthusiast; be like everybody else.  It is so much more comfortable.”

“You can put it off like this,” says Miss Knollys in a low tone.  “It is very simple; but you should think.  I have always thought you—­you liked Maurice, but you were a—­a friend of his.  Save him from this.  Don’t let him marry this child.”

“I don’t think he will marry a child!” says Mrs. Bethune, laughing.

“You mean——­”

“I mean nothing at all—­nothing, really,” says Marian.  “But that baby!  My dear Margaret, how impossible!”

CHAPTER VIII.

HOW A STORM RAGED; AND HOW, WHEN A MAN AND WOMAN MET FACE TO FACE, THE VICTORY—­FOR A WONDER—­WENT TO THE MAN.

There has been a second scene between Lady Rylton and Sir Maurice—­this time a terrible scene.  She had sent for him directly after dinner, and had almost commanded him to marry Miss Bolton.  She had been very bitter in her anger, and had said strange things of Marian.  Sir Maurice had come off triumphant, certainly, if greatly injured, and with his heart on fire.  He had, at all events, sworn he would not marry the little Bolton girl.  Those perpetual insinuations!  What had his mother meant by saying that Marian was laying herself out to catch Lord Dunkerton, an old baron in the neighbourhood, with some money and a damaged reputation?  That could not be true—­he would not believe it.  That old beast!  Marian would not so much as look at him.  And yet—­had she not been very civil to him at that ball last week?

Coming out from his mother’s boudoir, a perfect storm of fury in his heart, he finds himself face to face with Marian.  Something in his face warns her.  She would have gone by him with a light word or two, but, catching her by the wrist, he draws her into a room on his left.