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CHAPTER XXII.
PEPITA!

Donald Kayne did not hear the old woman's shriek of joy, nor see Jack Dineheart's craft. He flung along the sands with a long, striding step, his heart seething with rage and pain, and, entering the grounds at Gray Gables, sought a seat among the thick shrubberies to muse undisturbed over his troubles.

The startling disappearance of Nita from the Rhodus house had filled him with vague alarm and unowned remorse. He knew that she was not with Dorian, and also knew that the bereaved young husband had been told that his young bride was dead.

He had heard, too, while in hiding on the island, that grave fears were entertained for Dorian's reason. He had been terribly shocked the morning after Nita's disappearance when poor Lizette had been found moaning upon the ground, where she had fallen from the window. The maid's ankle had sustained a dreadful sprain, and she had several bruises of a very painful character. She was carried into the house and carefully attended, but it was several hours before she could tell how her accident had happened.

Donald Kayne believed at first that it must have been an emissary from Dorian who had carried Nita away, but the careful inquiries made afterward revealed the fact that she was not upon the yacht.

The guilty man who, in imprisoning Nita, had not intended that any harm should come to her, was confronted by the terrible mystery of Nita's betrayal into some unknown and awful fate. Cruelly disappointed and angry as he had been over Nita's refusal to gratify his curiosity, he could not rid himself of the impression that it was not mere girlish perversity on her part.

He was haunted by the look in Nita's eyes the night when he had knelt at her feet, begging her to confess the truth. He had told the girl he was her enemy, and that he would persecute her, but he had not dreamed of anything like this.

He had promised Azalea to return and report his luck with old Meg, but he felt averse to seeking the pretty girl yet, so he remained in the old garden-chair, with his head bowed despondingly on his hand, while darkness fell round him, and up at the old stone house the windows began to glow with lights, while from the open windows of the parlor Azalea Courtney's voice broke upon the air in a song.

Azalea's voice was clear, sweet, and well-trained, and she had chosen a sweet and melancholy strain that blended fittingly with the pensive twilight hour:

 
"'There never was a love like mine,
For since my darling went away
There has not been a night or day,
Through winter's snow or summer's shine,
But he is with me
                                 Constantly!'"
 

The pathetic words sank deep into the tortured heart of the man, listening out in the dusk and dew, with the murmur of the sea in his ears and the heavy perfume of flowers all around. He pressed his heavy brow against the back of his seat, murmuring over the words:

 
"'There never was a love like mine!'"
 

Azalea stopped singing, but played on in dreamy mood a low, sad nocturne.

Suddenly, through the stillness of the garden, a faint sound reached his ear—a sound like a human sigh, then:

"Donald!"

With a start and a cry he lifted his head.

"Donald," was breathed tremulously upon the air again.

But there was no one near. Thrilling with awe, he glared into the darkness. The night was dark, and there in the shade of the tall firs and shrubberies, the shadows were dense. He could barely distinguish the outlines of his own hand. And yet as he gazed the voice called him again, softly, tenderly, beseechingly:

"Donald!"

"Who is there? Who calls?" he asked eagerly, and no voice replied, but out of the darkness there began to form before him at a little distance a faint, silvery something like a cloud taking shape and form. It grew more and more dense until it assumed the form of a woman—a mist-woman, shadowy, faint, yet luminous with a soft, unearthly glow, and beautiful as an angel with spiritual face, and slender, beckoning hands.

A strange spell came over the gazer, a spell of tender awe and ineffable peace. He spoke, and his voice was low and soft, like a sigh of love:

"Pepita."

For a moment the silvery mist wavered there in its wondrous beauty before him; then, all at once, it began to move backward from him with a floating movement of ineffable grace, the dark, solemn eyes still fixed on his, while the beckoning hand and etherial voice both breathed:

"Come!"

Donald Kayne arose like one in a dream, and followed the floating mist on and on through winding paths overgrown here and there with grass and weeds, toward the house, blundering on in a dazed way like a drunken man, tearing his hands upon thorny, outstretched branches of roses, shaking down splatters of dew that wet his face and hair.

The radiant shape was leading him on and on toward the house, and the nearer they came the more faint and indistinct it grew.

At last—when close to the old gray stone wall, and when his outstretched hands almost touched it—the phantom shape moved straight against the wall and melted into thin air like a bubble.

Donald Kayne, with a cry of agony, clutched at the fading form, and fell forward heavily against the wall, striking his temple with resounding force. The blow stunned him and flung him backward, half-unconscious upon the grass. He did not know that he lay there for an hour ere he struggled back to thought and memory.

He struggled up to his feet and gazed at the blank wall, so chill and dark, where the spirit-form had disappeared.

"I have seen a ghost," he shuddered. "It was Pepita in all her beauty. Yet I saw through and beyond her the trees and flowers. She is dead, my Pepita, I know it at last!"

CHAPTER XXIII.
NITA AT GRAY GABLES AGAIN

The sun was sinking out of sight, and the curlew's call came shrilly across the waves when Jack Dineheart's fishing-boat anchored in the bay, and a little cockle-shell of a row-boat brought him across to his mother's cabin.

She was watching for him eagerly and with amazed eyes, for when the sailor left the little boat he carried in his arms the form of a woman lying inert like one dead against his shoulder, while her face and head were shrouded in a large plaid shawl.

"Hush! not a word," he breathed hoarsely to his mother, with a warning nod toward the sailor who had rowed the boat across, and he strode to the cabin with his silent burden. When he laid the quiet figure down upon a lounge and withdrew the shawl from the face, Meg recoiled with a cry of wonder and alarm.

It was Nita—Nita, whom every one believed dead. She looked like a dead woman now. Her face and lips were white, and the long, black fringe of the thick, curly lashes lay heavily against her cheeks.

"Don't look so frightened. She is not dead," said Jack Dineheart roughly. "I drugged her to bring her here without an outcry—that is all. She'll come to presently, all right."

"But, Jack, where did you find her? I thought she was dead."

"Old woman, I can't stay to answer questions now. I've got to go back to my ship and steer her into harbor. I'll come back as soon as I can. And, in the meantime, don't you let her get away."

"I'll keep her all right," Meg replied, with one of her hideous grins, and then he went away, returning later to find her waiting for him on the steps outside.

"She has come to, and is almost crazy to get away, so I locked her in and came out here to wait for you," she said. He sat down close to her, and confided his story to her ears, ending with:

"I brought her over to my boat and told them all she was my crazy sister. Bill Skipper and his wife had seen her here four years ago, and so there was no one to contradict my story, and old Mother Skipper took care of her all the way, for she was sick and nearly died on the voyage."

"And what do you expect to do with her now?" grimly inquired old Meg.

A string of oaths broke from his lips, in the midst of which she distinguished an avowed determination to force Nita to become his wife.

"But you said she was married to that young swell."

"He's dead by now!" was the vicious reply. "And, whether he's dead or not, she shall marry me."

It was so dark Meg could not see his face, but she knew he was terribly in earnest. She sat silently musing several moments until he exclaimed irritably:

"Why don't you say something? You used to be as much up for the plan as I was."

"Things are different now, Jack," she answered in a troubled tone, and when he questioned her she told him the story of the night when the old miser had brought Nita to Gray Gables as his ward.

"Now, Jack, you know you can defy anybody in the world except old Miser Farnham, and you daren't do that. He claims her now, and all you can do is to let her go back up yonder to Gray Gables and queen it over us again," she ended bitterly.

She was frightened at the terrible explosion of wrath that followed her words. The man raved and stormed, and she, although a fury to every one else, cowered in silence under his wrath. She knew that in spite of himself he must yield to the mysterious power the old miser held over them both. From the cot where he lay half-dead in Bellevue, he seemed to reach out a hand in grim menacing that cowed burly Jack Dineheart into instant, though grumbling, obedience.

"If I had known this I would have drowned Nita in the sea before I would have brought her back here," he growled.

But when Meg proposed to take the girl immediately back to Gray Gables, he did not interpose the least objection. The woman unlocked the cabin-door and entered, finding Nita sobbing hysterically upon the old ragged lounge.

"Dry up that sniveling, girl, and come along with me up to Gray Gables!" she cried roughly.

Nita sprang up in trembling hope.

"Do you mean it, Meg? Oh, will you indeed be so kind?" she faltered.

"Yes, I mean it, and I hope you won't forget Jack and me for our goodness. We are poor as dirt, you know, and it's worth a pretty penny to rescue you from prison and bring you safe back to Pirate Beach," grunted the hag, making the most she could out of her son's enforced relinquishment of his prize.

"Oh, I will reward you richly! You and Jack shall have handfuls of gold to-morrow," promised the grateful girl, and, leaning on Meg's arm, for she was very weak, Nita left the cabin, and proceeded slowly toward Gray Gables.

She saw no more of her rough suitor, for, furious with disappointment, he had taken himself out of the way.

Nita's heart beat high with hope as she neared her home. Meg had not thought of telling her that Miser Farnham was yet alive, and the girl could think of nothing except how soon she would be reunited to her young husband.

More than six weeks had elapsed since Nita and Lizette had left Gray Gables for the yachting excursion with Dorian Mountcastle that had resulted so disastrously. Yet, how familiar everything looked as the girl went with weak, faltering footsteps up the broad steps into the lighted hall.

The broad front doors were wide open, and also the parlor door. From it came the sound of gay voices and merry laughter. Meg Dineheart, with a love of sensation, dragged Nita to this door.

The Courtneys had several city guests lingering still, and Donald Kayne had joined them but a short while before. He sat near the window, with a dull, dazed look on his face, speaking but little, and listening with an effort to the careless words of the guests.

Upon this scene broke the bent figure of the old fortune-teller, with Nita by her side.

Mrs. Courtney was entertaining a guest in her most stately manner, but the words she was uttering died unspoken on her lips, and she sprang up with a strangled cry of alarmed surprise:

"Nita Farnham!"

"Nita Farnham!" echoed Azalea, in appalled tones, as though she had seen a ghost.

Ere Nita could speak old Meg's thin, rasping voice broke upon the hubbub of surprise, exclaiming:

"Yes, it's Nita Farnham, ma'am, sure enough. She wasn't drowned at sea, in spite of the storm. My son saved her life, and brought her back to Pirate Beach to-night. I hope you're glad to see her back," and she pushed Nita into a chair near the door and retreated, leaving her charge alone among them.

The eyes of the guests were upon the Courtneys, and no matter how they felt, it was incumbent on them to welcome Nita in a cordial manner. Nita got two cold little pecks on the cheek from mother and daughter, and some little murmurs of affection that she took at their true valuation.

Introductions followed, but Nita was weary, and rose from her seat, saying faintly that she would go to her room.

Some one came forward and offered his arm, and she shrank and trembled when she perceived that it was Donald Kayne. He bent and whispered, inaudibly, to the others:

"Say nothing yet, I beseech you. I was mad to do what I did, but God only knows the suffering that drove me to desperation."

In spite of herself Nita's heart was touched with pity. He had treated her infamously, yet somehow she could not hate him. Her tender heart always ached over the secret she could not betray to him, and her dreams were often haunted by the name "Pepita," that he had uttered in such a tragic tone.

She raised her dark, reproachful eyes to his face, and whispered sadly:

"You need not fear me."

But she was trembling so that she could not touch his offered arm, and she looked appealingly at Mrs. Courtney.

"I would like for Mrs. Hill to attend me to my room," she said gently.

"My dear girl, the housekeeper has an evening out, but I will attend you myself," was the affectionate reply, and Mrs. Courtney, coming forward, led Nita up-stairs and unlocked the door of her room.

"Mrs. Hill found it necessary to lock your room," she said. "That old woman you came with to-night has been prowling about here trying to steal something."

She pushed open the windows and let in the cool air. Then she lighted a lamp, adding carelessly:

"Everything is just as you left it, my dear. Although we believed you dead, it seemed best to trouble nothing until after your guardian's recovery."

Nita had sunk down wearily upon a lounge, her dark head falling among the satin pillows, but at those words she rose up with a startled cry:

"My—my—guardian!"

Mrs. Courtney, settling herself cozily into an easy chair, replied blandly:

"Oh, I forgot you went away with Dorian that day, and did not hear about Miser Farnham's terrible accident."

"But, yes, I did, Mrs. Courtney, oh, yes. They told me on the yacht that night. Captain Van Hise told me—that my guardian had been killed on the elevated railroad," Nita cried eagerly, breathlessly.

"He was mistaken," Mrs. Courtney answered placidly. "He was severely wounded, and it was believed that he would certainly die, but he is still alive at Bellevue Hospital, and although nothing but a wreck still, the doctors and nurses say that he will be sure to recover."

She never forgot the white horror of the girl's face, nor the anguish of despair in her eyes.

"Alive?" cried Nita wildly, "alive? Why, how can that be? I am married to Dorian, you know!"

"Yes; and it was a very reprehensible affair, I think," Mrs. Courtney answered stiffly. "An elopement always carries with it the odor of disgrace."

But Nita was deaf to her words of blame. With a stifled moan of the bitterest despair, she fell back unconscious.

CHAPTER XXIV.
THE MISER SENDS FOR HIS BRIDE

"What a nuisance!" muttered Mrs. Courtney, but she bathed Nita's face until she came to herself with a long, low sigh of deepest pain.

"I have been dreaming—oh, such a dreadful dream!" she shuddered.

"No, it was not a dream, Nita. I was telling you your guardian was alive, and you fainted—from excess of joy, I suppose," added the lady maliciously.

Nita sat up and pressed her small hand wearily to her brow. Despair made her brave.

"No, Mrs. Courtney, it was excess of sorrow," she answered frankly.

"Oh, you cruel, wicked girl!"

"Do you think so?" asked Nita, with calmness. "No matter, I was glad when I heard that he was dead. I hated him—oh, I cannot tell you how I feared and hated him."

"But why?" curiously.

"Can you ask?" cried Nita despairingly. "Who could love that grim, horrible old man? And I told you once—you remember that night—that he would never, never let me marry Dorian!"

"Yet you married him, all the same, so what does his life matter? He cannot undo the elopement!" returned Mrs. Courtney, wondering at the girl's strange words and manner.

"But I believed that he was dead. Oh, Mrs. Courtney, listen patiently, please. I did not know that my impatient lover had made any plans to elope with me when I went on the yacht for a moonlight trip. Then came the duel, you know, and Dorian was so badly wounded. He sent his friend to ask me to marry him, but at first I refused, for I knew my guardian would never consent, and I did not dare disobey him! Oh, you cannot guess how I fear that horrible old man! Then Captain Van Hise told me he was dead, and I consented to marry Dorian. We were married, and only a few minutes afterward I was swept into the sea by the great wave rolling over the ship. Oh, God! why was I saved from death to meet this awful fate?—to be parted forever from my own love, when happiness seemed so near?"

"But your guardian cannot punish you for marrying your lover—these fears are quite groundless, Nita," Mrs. Courtney said, coldly, but decidedly.

"Oh, madam, I am the most friendless and unhappy girl in the whole world!" she cried passionately. "I have no kindred hearts to pity me, no one to care for me! You have never liked me, I know, but I plead with you to have pity on me, and try to be my friend. Oh, I will be so grateful for a little kindness and pity in this dark hour!"

An earthquake could hardly have shocked Mrs. Courtney more than this humble plea from Nita, who had always resented her dislike and given her scorn for scorn. She put out her slender, aristocratic hand and clasped Nita's gently, drawing her to a seat by her side.

"My dear girl, of course I am your friend, and will do anything in the world for you," she exclaimed. "But let me tell you that you are very nervous and fanciful to-night. How can you call yourself friendless and alone when you have a rich and noble husband like Dorian Mountcastle? I assure you that a loving husband is always a woman's best friend. Then, too, you have a doting guardian."

The girl rose from her seat and stood before the woman, pale as a ghost.

"Mrs. Courtney, do not call them my friends, those two men," she said, almost sternly. "From to-night and henceforth forever, they are my bitterest foes."

Surprise held the listener dumb, and Nita continued:

"Never again while the world stands will I consent ever to look upon the face of Charles Farnham or Dorian Mountcastle."

"The girl is mad, mad as a March hare. Her adventures have turned her brain," murmured Mrs. Courtney amazedly.

"No, madam, I am not mad, I am perfectly sane, and I wish to make you an offer. Will you and Azalea go abroad with me, and travel wherever you wish for a year? I am rich. I will pay every expense if you will chaperon me on this trip. I will be perfectly frank with you. I want to avoid the two men of whom we have been speaking. I am afraid of them both. I have wronged them both, yet I am innocent of blame. Yet I fear the miser's hate and Dorian's love in equal measure. Oh, madam, be kind to me. Grant my prayer, and I will be forever grateful! And the time will come, I swear it to you, when you will say to yourself and to the world: 'I am glad I was kind to poor Nita, and had no hand in her tragic fate.' What say you, madam? Shall we start to-morrow on our travels?"

Nita need not have felt any doubt over the answer. It was the strangest turn of Fortune's wheel that Mrs. Courtney had ever known—the strangest, and the most welcome.

She felt that behind it lay some strange dark mystery, a baffling mystery that it should be her task to ferret out if it lay in mortal power, but in the meantime she accepted Nita's offer with pretended reluctance, putting it solely as a favor to the young girl. Then, after recommending her to retire as early as possible, she returned to her guests with a heart full of secret exultation.

Nita locked her door and fell down on her couch in a fit of hysterical sobbing. Mrs. Courtney's revelation had shown her all the horror of her position. Wife to two living men, she loathed the one who had the legal right to claim her.

And Nita knew, and the knowledge added poignancy to her pain, that it was her own fault. Why had she betrothed herself to Dorian when she was not free, cheating herself with a little semblance of happiness, and so led him on to the elopement that must now wreck his life?

She believed that Miser Farnham's wrath would be murderous when he recovered and learned what she had done. And Dorian, how he would hate her for her sin!

She would rather die than meet Dorian again—he whom she had so terribly deceived. If he cursed her for her folly she could not bear it; she must die at his feet of her bitter shame—and if he forgave her madness and loved her still, what then? Still she was not free! And how could she own the truth to him? She could never do that. She would sooner fly to the other end of the world.

She leaned from the window, and gazed upon the great ocean and the starlit sky.

"Oh, how beautiful the world is, and why should there be so much unhappiness in it?" she cried.

Nita's musings were interrupted by the sudden entrance of Mrs. Hill, the housekeeper, who was wild with joy over the news of Nita's return.

"Mrs. Courtney has told me how you were saved by a sailor, and brought back," she cried gladly, and added in a more subdued key: "But poor Lizette, that dear, good girl, what a pity she was not saved, too."

Nita was about to exclaim that Lizette was alive, but she suddenly remembered Donald Kayne's entreaty for her silence, and made no reply. In spite of his cruelty, she pitied the man.

Jack Dineheart had told her that the maid, on finding herself entrapped and deserted, had jumped from the window and broken her neck, but she tried not to believe the horrible story.

All that Donald Kayne had told in New York about Dorian Mountcastle was true. When concealment was no longer possible his friends had been obliged to break to him, as gently as might be, the news of Nita's death, and that it was her wraith, and not a living girl, that had appeared to him on board the yacht that fateful night. The despair of the bereaved young husband was awful in its intensity. His reason tottered, and it was found necessary to place him in strict confinement, and guard him closely for several days until his violent mood subsided into moody melancholy.

Captain Van Hise was tender and devoted as a woman to his stricken friend, and when Dorian, after weeks of despair, became a pale, quiet shadow of his former self, he persuaded him to go abroad with him.

They went, but Dorian dwelt ceaselessly on the memory of that strange night when Nita had come to him and laid her head on his breast and her arms about his neck—aye, and kissed him, too, with ardent lips that seemed to burn with the breath of life. He prayed Heaven to grant him that sweet vision of his lost love again.

Van Hise was in despair.

"He will go crazy in earnest if he keeps on this way," he said to himself, despondently.

It was nearing spring then, and they were in Paris. But Dorian was familiar with Paris. Perhaps he had exhausted its delights long ago. He wearied of its splendors.

"I am tired. Let us go somewhere else," he said impatiently.

"But, my dear fellow, we have been everywhere."

"No, we have not. I know some men who are going on a journey into the interior of Norway. I have accepted for us both their invitation to join the party," said reckless Dorian.

"It will be quite out of the world," groaned the soldier, but he yielded.

It was strange that Dorian and Nita should both be abroad so many months without meeting each other, or even being aware of each other's movements.

And yet it was a fact that Captain Van Hise and Dorian had never even heard that Nita was alive, and Nita knew nothing of Dorian since the fateful night when Jack Dineheart had torn her from his arms and carried her back to Pirate Beach.

Since she had gone abroad with the Courtneys, life had been one feverish whirl of gayety, change, and sight-seeing. Nita, with her heart upon the rack, and a smile upon her lips, had borne her part bravely in all, lavishing gold like water in the pursuit of forgetfulness. The Courtneys, nothing loath, accepted her munificence, and made the most of it, although wondering at her reckless extravagance. They did not know how often she said to herself:

"The chest of gold is melting like snow in the sun, but why should I care? There remain to me but a few more months of life and liberty, then—darkness, nothingness, and death. Let me make the most of it!"

Mrs. Courtney had been in London in her days of prosperity, and had acquaintances among the nobility. In the spring, when the London season set in, she introduced her ward into the most fashionable set. And the fashionable world raved over the charms of la belle Americaine.

She had lovers by the score. Hearts and titles were laid at her feet, but all soon echoed what Mrs. Courtney had frankly told them of Nita:

"She has no heart."

Nita only smiled when they accused her of her fault.

"It is quite true," she said. "I have no heart to give any one. Why do you not fall in love with pretty, golden-haired Azalea?"

One man, piqued at her indifference, tried to take her advice. He transferred his attention to the affable blonde.

He was Sir George Merlin, a wealthy baronet, middle-aged, but very goodlooking. He was vain and conceited, and Nita's rejection hurt his pride as well as his love. He proposed to Azalea through pure pique.

The blonde accepted gladly, and Mrs. Courtney was transported with joy. The only drawback to her bliss was that the baronet did not seem in any hurry to name the wedding-day. But the engagement was formally announced, and his sister gave a ball in honor of the fair Azalea.

Nita's thoughts often wandered to Dorian. Where was he? What was he doing? Did he know that she was alive, or did he mourn her dead? Somehow, at first she had looked for him, dreaded his appearance with mingled pain and pleasure. As the months went past she gave up the thought of his coming. She began to fancy that he must be dead.

Sometimes it all seemed to her like a feverish dream, those strange past days of love and pain; yet all the time she was drawing nearer and nearer to the fatal end of the year, to the moment when her hated master would claim her as his bride.

It was May now, and the world was all in bloom. Charles Farnham would be coming to claim his bride.

On the very day of Lady Landon's ball for Azalea, Mrs. Courtney received a letter commanding her to return at once to New York with her charge. Mrs. Courtney went at once to Nita in her room.

"Nita, I must break through your rule, never to mention your guardian's name to you. I have a letter from him."

Nita turned a pale face of fear and despair.

"A—letter!" she faltered; "so, then—he—he—is coming for—me?"

The white terror of her face was enough to move a heart of stone. Mrs. Courtney smiled reassuringly.

"Do not look so frightened, Nita, there is no need, for he writes very kindly of you, and makes no mention of your marriage. Perhaps he means to forgive you and Dorian," she said, feeling magnanimous toward the girl now that Azalea's market was made.

Nita only sunk helplessly into a chair, her face white, her eyes wild. It seemed as if she could not reply. Mrs. Courtney, with her eyes on the letter, continued:

"Mr. Farnham is quite well again, and wants me to hasten home with you. He says that he has bought and furnished a Fifth Avenue palace for you, with carriages and horses of the finest, and is most anxious to see you queening it in New York society. Indeed, Nita, after the training I have given you, it will be easy for you to do so"—complacently. "Really, my dear, the old man seems very proud and fond of you, and I never heard of a more generous guardian. You are a very fortunate girl, and I am sure you have only to ask him, and he will pardon you and Dorian."

"Ah! you do not know, you do not dream," moaned the girl, hiding her face in her hands.

Must she go? must she obey the old miser's command?

"This letter has been following us about for some time, and I must reply to it to-morrow," continued the lady. "What shall I say to him, Nita? That we will cross next week?"

"I will not go!" cried Nita, with a frantic gesture.

"But, really, Nita, I think we must go. I cannot understand this strange fear of your guardian. A young girl like you must obey either her guardian or her husband. You repudiate the claim of Dorian Mountcastle, and so you remain subject to the orders of Mr. Farnham."

"Let us speak no more of it now. I will decide to-morrow," Nita answered.

Mrs. Courtney knew that it was almost time to dress for the ball, so she retired, determined in her own mind that she would take Nita speedily back to New York and Fifth Avenue.

"Our leaving now will force Sir George to ask Azalea to name the wedding-day," she thought sagely. "And Nita is so generous I think she will readily purchase the trousseau. The marriage can take place from the miser's place, and Sir George need never know how very poor we are."