Her intimacy with Dalton had been proof of all this, as well as her friendships with various men to whose companionship many another husband might have objected.

"All right, Barbara," was his invariable reply; "you will get over your youth one of these days, and then you and I will settle down." Even when the financial crash had come, he had begged her to go with him to Australia, where he had important family connections, and where he could build up his fortunes anew.

It was by no means certain, he had told her, that he was entirely ruined.

His father's estate, when all the debts were paid, might still leave a surplus.

There was some land just outside of London, too, on the line of suburban improvement, and this, with the title which had come to him with his father's death, would doubtless, after a few years, enable them to return to England and resume their former position.