You have forced on the marriage by unscrupulous means, your object being only too clearly to live out of the proceeds of that marriage.' 'Mr.Power, you mock me, because I labour under the misfortune of having an illegitimate father to provide for.

I really deserve commiseration.' 'You might deserve it if that were all.

But it looks bad for my niece's happiness as Lady De Stancy, that she and her husband are to be perpetually haunted by a young chevalier d'industrie, who can forge a telegram on occasion, and libel an innocent man by an ingenious device in photography.

It looks so bad, in short, that, advantageous as a title and old family name would be to her and her children, I won't let my brother's daughter run the risk of having them at the expense of being in the grip of a man like you.

There are other suitors in the world, and other titles: and she is a beautiful woman, who can well afford to be fastidious.