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“Now we are well launched into the subject on which I wished to speak to you,” said Lady Haigh. “Allow me, Charlie, as being in a certain sense Miss Anstruther’s guardian, to ask you your intentions?”

“To speak to her to-morrow if I can only get her alone, and marry her as soon as possible, if she will have me,” he replied, promptly.

“So I thought. Well, Charlie, all I have to say is that you are to do nothing of the kind, however often you may manage to see her alone.”

“Really, Cousin Elma, I believe that Miss Anstruther is of age, and capable of managing her own affairs.”

“Don’t put on that high and mighty manner, Charlie. I am advising you for your good and hers. Do you know anything of the footing on which Miss Anstruther stands here?”

“Once or twice she has mentioned some sort of agreement to remain a certain time, but I imagine it would not be difficult to get that set aside.”

“My dear boy, that is all you know about it! Miss Anstruther is solemnly pledged to remain in this situation for two years. In some sort of way, I am her security for doing so. Now, I ask you, as an honourable man, would you be acting rightly if you induced her to break this agreement, or could you respect her if she showed herself willing to break it in order to marry a man of whose very existence she was not aware when she signed it?”