"I am beginning to get tired of the old name," says Maurice slowly.
"Its nobility seems to me to be on the decline."

"Oh, not now," says Lady Rylton, who does not understand him, who
could not, if she tried, fathom the depths of self-contempt that he
endures, when he thinks of this evening's work, of his permitting
this child to marry him, and give him her wealth--for
nothing--nothing! What _can_ he give her in return? An old name. She
had not seemed to care for that--to know the importance of it. "Now
it will rise again, and at all events, Maurice, you have saved the
old home!"

"True!" says he. "For you."

"For _me?_ Oh, dearest boy, what _can_ you mean?"

"Yes, for you only. She refuses to live here with you."

The very disquietude of his soul has driven him into this mad
avowal. Looking at her with dull eyes and lowering brows, he tells
himself--in this, one of the saddest hours of his life--that he
hates the mother who bore him. Her delight in his engagement is
odious to him; it seems to fan his rage against her. What has she
ever done for him, what sympathy has she ever shown? She has
embittered the life of the woman he loves; she has insulted the
woman he is to marry. What consideration does she deserve at his
hands?

"She refuses to live here with _me?"_ says Lady Rylton. "And why,