And she was only seventeen, with no mother to speak one
warning word to her.
She pledged herself to be Allan Lyster's wife when she came of age. He
told her he would rather forego all claim to her wealth, marry her at
once, and leave her guardian to act as he thought best; but she, though
delighted to find him free from the least taint of anything mercenary,
refused to run the risk of losing her fortune.
"Would you really," she said to him one day, "love me as much if I were
quite poor, as you do now?"
"Would I! Oh, Marion, what a question to ask me! The only drawback to my
love is that hateful fortune; if it were not for that I would marry you
at once. Ah, you should find out what I loved you for, sweet. I would
work for you night and day. I would move the whole world to find for my
darling that which she would require."
And the girl in her simplicity believed him, and thought herself the
most fortunate among woman to have won a love for herself that had in it
no taint of this world.
So they flung the glamor of love and flattery around her, until she lost
the keen perception of right and wrong that would have saved her.
She promised to be Allan Lyster's wife. When he had won that promise
from her, he pretended to think better of it.
"I am wrong to ask you, Marion; I am selfish, I ought not even wish you
to share my lot."
She asked him why, raising her sweet eyes to his face.
"Why, because when you go out into the great world peers and princes
will woo you, my darling; the noblest in the land will sue for your
favor, and you, who might have been a duchess, will repent loving and
caring for one so poor and obscure as I am.
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