“Oh, my love, don’t cry!” he said, a catch in his own voice. “Perhaps it is not too late: we can contrive something—we must contrive something!” But he spoke without conviction, for he knew that he would never have anything to set against Rule’s fortune. He put his arms round Elizabeth, and laid his cheek against her curls while her tears fell on his gay scarlet coat.

After a little while she drew herself away. “I am making you unhappy too,” she said.

At that he went down on his knee beside her, and hid his face in her hands. She did not make any effort to pull them away, but said only: “Mama has been so kind. I am permitted to tell you myself. It is—it must be goodbye, Edward. I have not the strength to continue seeing you. Oh, is it wrong of me to say that I shall have you in my heart always—always?”

“I cannot let you go!” he said with suppressed violence. “All our hopes—our plans—Elizabeth, Elizabeth!”

She did not speak, and presently he raised his face, flushed now and haggard. “What can I do? Is there nothing?”

She touched the couch beside her. “Do you think I have not tried to think of something?” she said sadly. “Alas, did we not feel always that ours was nothing but a dream, impossible to realize?”

He sat down again, leaning his arm on his knee, and looking down at his own neat boot. “It’s your brother,” he said. “Debts.”

She nodded. “Mama told me so much that I did not know. It is worse than I imagined. Everything is mortgaged, and there are Charlotte and Horatia to think for. Pelham has lost five thousand guineas at a sitting in Paris.”

“Does Pelham never win?” demanded Mr Heron despairingly.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “He says he is very unlucky.”

He looked up. “Elizabeth, if it hurts you I am sorry, but that you should be sacrificed to Pelham’s selfish, thoughtless—”