Page:Elizabeth's Pretenders.djvu/20

Rh He owed it to Elizabeth to provide her with a second mother; he owed it to himself to provide a small heir to the firm, if possible. Neither consideration, apparently, weighed with him. Or, if the latter had any weight, as it undoubtedly would have had under different circnmstances, it was counterbalanced by the dangers attending such a step. His first object in life was his child; her happiness might be imperilled, and her home rendered insupportable to her, by a stepmother. He never forgot his dead wife's words. It is true that, far from exacting his abstinence from a second union, she had urged it upon him. But she had pointed out a difficulty which he might otherwise have overlooked; and that was enough for him. The voluntary promise he had made her, though rejected, he held binding; and happily he had never any personal temptation to break it. No woman he looked upon, however fair, seemed worthy to take the place of her who was gone.

The years slid by. He gave less time to his business, which was too firmly established to call for much personal supervision, and divided the leisure that he gained between his public duties in the town and certain philanthropic schemes which he had started. He was generally alone; but occasionally his brother or a friend stayed with him, and once or twice Mrs. William Shaw accompanied her husband on these visits. She had not been long married at that time, and was an unknown quantity to her brother-in-law. He knew she was a half-pay captain's daughter, who had been brought up at Boulogne, and that it was considered a wonderful "catch" for her when she married William. She was certainly a very pretty woman, of the