Need you ask ?" For one wild moment Christopher felt that he must tell Elisabeth how passionately he would woo her, should she lose her fortune; and how he would spend his life and his income in trying to make her happy, should George Farringdon's son be found and she cease to be one of the greatest heiresses in the Midlands.

But he held himself back by the bitter knowledge of how cruelly appearances were against him.

He had made up his mind to do the right thing at all costs; at least, he had not exactly made up his mind--he saw the straight path, and the possibility of taking any other never occurred to him.

But if he succeeded in this hateful and (to a man of his type) inevitable quest, he would not only sacrifice Elisabeth's interests, he would also further his own by making it possible for him to ask her to marry him--a thing which he felt he could never do as long as she was one of the wealthiest women in Mershire, and he was only the manager of her works.

Duty is never so difficult to certain men as when it wears the garb and carries with it the rewards of self-interest; others, on the contrary, find that a joint-stock company, composed of the Right and the Profitable, supplies its passengers with a most satisfactory permanent way whereby to travel through life.