The little household in Knightsbridge, where Marion Durrant lived with her invalid aunt, Miss Traynor, did not breakfast early. It was very rarely the teapot found its way to the table until ten o'clock. Miss Traynor was one of those invalids who suffer from sleeplessness, together with other maladies; and it was often three, four, or five o'clock in the morning before she closed her eyes.

Miss Traynor was old-fashioned and kindly, with none of the irritability or exactingness of the invalid about her. She was often in great pain; but at such times she wished to be alone. She was never irritable or capricious. She always behaved in her own house as though she were a guest, as far as herself was concerned. She hated ringing bells for the servant, and tried to prevent Marion doing a number of little services which many women in health exact of those around them.

But she was most decidedly old-fashioned. She had a great number of settled notions, notions acquired long ago, and which nothing in the world could shake. All the eloquence or argument in the world would not move her on any subject she had made up her mind about twenty or thirty years ago. She had an antipathy to new theories, new places, new people. She was an enthusiastic admirer of Church and State. She considered all Liberals murderers and regicides at heart, not that she had even a dim idea of what a Liberal was. Personally she would not have hurt the meanest of God's creatures, but she could have read with lively satisfaction that all the Liberals and Radicals had been drowned, provided all detail were omitted, and a bishop had something to do with the matter.

She looked on clergymen of the Church of England with the greatest respect, and she considered bishops infallible and impeccable. She did not put the least faith in missions to savages. She had a mean opinion of savages, and did not think them worth the trouble taken with them by pious folk of a certain way of thinking.

Her father before her had taken in The Times, and she took it in too; not that she read much of it, but that she thought every staid respectable house ought to have The Times; and that, after the Church and State, The Times was the most important institution in the country. She had no comprehensive notion of what the Church was, and her idea of the State was The Court Circular. But in what way The Times contributed to the welfare of the country, she had no conception whatever. She was always quite sure that whatever The Times said must infallibly be right. Any suggestion that, possibly, a conflict or difference of any kind could arise between these three, she would have treated with merciless scorn. There were the Church, State, and Times; and as long as they went on, England must continue to be the greatest, most pious, and most successful country under the sun.

After the Church, State, and Times the institution which claimed her greatest respect was the Peerage of England. She would cheerfully have allowed art and commerce to die if we might only retain our old nobility. She had no social ambition for herself. She knew she was not of the metal peers are made of. If a lord had spoken to her, she would have felt he was doing something derogatory to his order. She was a firm believer in caste, and did not wish those above her to come down any more than she wished herself to go up.

"We ought all to keep in our own places, my dear," she would say. "It pleases Heaven that we shall be born in a certain state of life. If Heaven intended we should fill any other, there is no doubt we should have been born in that state. We ought not to try and change these things. We are not in our own hands, but in the hands of those above. If a king is wanted, one is sent; if a lord is wanted, one is sent; and so on. And we ought not to try and alter these laws of Nature any more than any other laws of Nature."

Upon being reminded that great generals and lawyers and statesmen are often made lords of, she would say:

"These, my dear, were intended by Nature to be lords, but there was no vacancy for them at the time. But you see, in the end, Nature found a vacancy, and they became lords. If a man is intended by Nature to be a lord, nothing in the world will keep him from being one."

The morning after the wreck of the yacht Seabird, Miss Traynor was later than usual for breakfast. She came down looking white and worn. She had been more sleepless than usual that night. But on mornings after such nights she was more gentle and considerate than at other times.

"How are you this morning, Marion?" she asked as she kissed the girl and sank into her elbow-chair.

"Pretty well, aunt, only I slept badly. How are you? You look as if you had had one of your bad nights," said Marion, as she began pouring out the tea.

"So I had, my child, so I had. I heard every hour till four; and I did not go to sleep even soon after that. What kept you awake?"

"Oh, I don't know, aunt," said the girl wearily.

"Well, if you don't know, I do, Marion; and you are a little goose to fret about the matter. I know him, dear, better than you do."

Marion smiled. As though anyone, or all the world together, could know her Charlie as she knew him.

"And he's a noble-hearted splendid fellow any girl might rely on and be proud of!"

Marion pouted. As though any human being could be more proud of any other than she was of him!

"And, Marion, you ought not to be a goose and go fidget your life out because you have not heard from him for two or three days. Now, if it were weeks or months, you might have cause to be uneasy."

Marion looked at her aunt in horror. As though it would be possible for her to live if she were months without hearing from him!

"You know very well, child, there is not a more loyal or gentle-minded man in all London."

Marion looked and smiled. As though anyone knew anything of Charlie's gentle-mindedness compared with what she knew of it!

"I'll take another cup of tea, and I'll engage you hear from him before the week is out."

"Before the week is out, aunt!" said Marion, speaking aloud for the first time on the subject. "Before the week is out! If I don't hear before then, I shall know something dreadful has happened."

"But I tell you you shall. I have a presentiment, a very strong presentiment, you will have a letter from him the morning after to-morrow, saying he is in town, and will be out to see you that afternoon."

"But why could he not come out, aunt, if he was in London the night before, instead of writing?" Even talking of the chance of his being in London was so much better than thinking of him as far away.

"I did not say he would be in London the night before. Might he not post his letter in Wales, or Cornwall, or Scotland, or Ireland?"

"Yes; but then, aunt, he ought to be here as soon as his letter."

"Now you are an impatient girl. Business might prevent his coming on by the mail. He might come by a late train. My presentiments are always right, or nearly always; and this is one of the very strongest I ever had in all my life."

Marion shook her head in despair rather than incredulity. Whatever was the matter, Charlie might have written. What business had he anywhere? In the ordinary sense of the word, he had no business. What he had to do with editors and proprietors of papers and publishers, was all done in London, not in that hateful place to which he had gone, wherever it was.

She did not care for her breakfast that morning. She drank a cup of tea, ate a mouthful of dry bread, but left the eggs and bacon untouched.

Miss Traynor having done all she could to cheer her niece, and being one of those gentle natures which cannot endure the sight of unhappiness in others when she was powerless to lessen it, took up The Times, partly to try and distract herself, and partly to shut out from her eyes the painful sight of the young girl's saddened face.

The gale of the night and day before had been general in England, and London had got its share of it. But a whole gale on the coast never seems more than a stiff breeze in London. Nevertheless, the gale of yesterday had not passed over London without inflicting injury; and among the other things which it had done within the ten-mile radius was to fling a chimney-pot into the street, just opposite Miss Traynor's front-door.

This had been a terrible event in the mind of Miss Traynor.

She had been fascinated at the time, and anticipated nothing short of the destruction of her own house and of everyone in it. She had eventually congratulated herself a dozen times on the fact that her will was made, and that Marion should have all she had the power to bequeath, in complete forgetfulness that according to her own theory, Marion would be included among the slain.

However, as afternoon passed into evening, the gale subsided, and Miss Traynor's apprehensions declined. But as she ceased to fear, she began to feel an interest in the perils she had passed. Therefore when, this morning, she saw a column of The Times headed "Yesterday's Gale," it instantly attracted her interest, and settling her spectacles on her nose, she began to read.

"Oh dear!" she cried suddenly.

"What is it, aunt?" said Marion, with little interest.

"There has been a dreadful wreck of a yacht; and the owner of it, the great Duke of Shropshire, is drowned."

"Good gracious!" said Marion, somewhat roused from the contemplation of her own unhappiness.

The old woman read on, but did not say anything further.

Marion had raised her eyes in expectation of more news, and was now looking with awakened interest at her aunt.

Gradually Miss Traynor's face lengthened with astonishment. The mouth opened, the eyebrows went up, the eyes grew round, and the plump cheeks became almost hollow.

"What is it?" said Marion, now thoroughly alert.

At last Miss Traynor put down the paper, and looked speechlessly at her niece for awhile.

"Aunt, do tell me what it is!"

"What did I say about your being proud?"

"I'm sure I don't think I'm very proud," said the girl, in uneasy perplexity.

"Of him?"

"Of whom, aunt? Do tell me!"

"Of Charles?"

"Well, I'm sure I'm very proud of him. But what has he to do with the storm, and the wreck, and a duke, and the paper?" asked the girl almost piteously.

From her aunt's manner one might assume anything, so long as the thing was very violent and unusual.

"There, read for yourself!" cried the aunt, handing the paper across the table to her niece.

With sparkling eyes and trembling hands, Marion caught the paper and began to read.

The comment on the rescue wound up with these words:

"For endurance and gallantry we may search in vain for a case parallel to this of Mr. Charles Augustus Cheyne. He will receive the medal of the Royal Humane Society, as a matter of course. But in a case of this kind it is to be regretted that some even higher distinction cannot be awarded for endurance and courage inferior to nothing which has gained for a handful of our boldest soldiers the Victoria Cross."

When Marion had finished reading she put the paper down on the table before her, looked feebly at her aunt for a moment, and then fell fainting back in her chair.