The dawn of the wedding-day has broken.  Everything has been hurried over as much as possible; with no unseemly haste—­just in the most ordinary, kindly way—­however.  But Lady Rylton’s hand was at the helm, and she guided her barque to a safe anchor with all speed.  She had kept Tita with her—­under her eye, as it were—­until the final accomplishment should have taken place.

The wedding, she declared, should be from her house, from The Place, seeing that the poor darling child was motherless!  She made herself all things to Tita in those days, although great anger stung her within.  She had been bitterly incensed by Maurice’s avowal that Tita had declined to live with her at The Place, but she had been mightily pleased, for all that, in the thought that therefore The Place would be left to her without a division of authority.

Sir Maurice has gone to Rickfort to interview “Uncle George” of unpleasant fame.  He had found him a rather strange-looking man, but not so impossible as Tita had led him to imagine.  He made no objection of any sort to the marriage, and, indeed, through his cold exterior Maurice could see that the merchant blood in him was flattered at his niece’s alliance with some of the oldest blood in England.

He was quite reasonable, too, about his niece’s fortune.  So much was to go to redeeming the more immediate debts on the property; for the rest, Sir Maurice declared he would have nothing to do with it.  The money should be settled on his wife entirely.  It was hers; he had no claim to it.  He would have something off his own property, a small thing, but sufficient for his requirements.  He gave his word to quit the turf finally.  He had no desire to amuse himself in that sort of way again—­or, indeed, in other ways.  He wished to settle down, etc.  It occurred to old Bolton, who was a shrewd man, that Sir Maurice looked like one whose interest in life and its joys was at an end.  Still, he was a baronet, and of very ancient lineage, and it was a triumph for the Boltons.  He refused to acknowledge to himself that he was sacrificing his niece.  It was not a sacrifice; it was an honour!

For one thing the old man stipulated, or rather bargained.  He had managed his niece’s affairs so far with great success; some of her money was in land, in Oakdean and Rickfort, for example; the rest he had invested securely, as he hoped and believed.  If he might still be acknowledged as her guardian?

Sir Maurice, of course, gave in.  Thoroughly ashamed and humiliated by the whole affair—­he, the man, without a penny; she, the woman, possessed of all things in that line—­it gave him genuine relief to tell her uncle that he would be actually thankful if he would still continue to be the head of her affairs, and manage her money matters, as he had managed them hitherto—­and always with such happy results.

Mr. Bolton had bowed to him over his spectacles; his curious gray eyes caught a little addition of light, as it were.  He was honoured by Sir Maurice’s confidence, but, if he might suggest it, he thought that whilst Sir Maurice’s affairs were righting themselves, he ought to allow himself a certain income out of his wife’s money.