He would give his last groat to a starving beggar.

But when his passion of scholar and inventor masters him, thou mightest think him worse than miser.

It is an overnoble yearning that ofttimes makes him mean." "Nay," answered Marmaduke, touched by the heavy sigh and swimming eyes with which the last words were spoken; "I have heard Nick Alwyn's uncle, who was a learned monk, declare that he could not constrain himself to pray to be delivered from temptation, seeing that he might thereby lose an occasion for filching some notable book! For the rest," he added, "you forget how much I owe to Master Warner's hospitality." He took her hand with a frank and brotherly gallantry as he spoke; but the touch of that small, soft hand, freely and innocently resigned to him, sent a thrill to his heart--and again the face of Sibyll seemed to him wondrous fair.
There was a long silence, which Sibyll was the first to break.

She turned the conversation once more upon Marmaduke's views in life.

It had been easy for a deeper observer than he was to see that, under all that young girl's simplicity and sweetness, there lurked something of dangerous ambition.