English fashions required two, and I could not afford
to purchase another made of real diamonds. I
urged the strictest secrecy, and I know she will
observe it; for she loves mystery only a little
less than she loves dress. She undertook the
commission with alacrity, and I expected to
have had both the bracelets yesterday."

"What a risk you would have run, mother,
supposing an occasion for your wearing the
bracelet had arisen!"

"Like Anne of Austria and the studs?" said
his mother, with a smile. "But there was no
help for it. More deceit and falsehood must
have followed the first. If the occasion had
arisen, Mr. Carruthers would have questioned
me, and I should have said I had sent it to be
cleaned, when he would have been angry that
'I should have done so without consulting him."

"Tyrannical old brute!" was George's mental
comment.

"All the meanness and all the, falsehood was
planned and ready, George; but it was needless.
Carruthers was summoned to York,
and is still there. It is much for me that the
parcel should arrive during his absence. I heard
from my friend, the day before I wrote to you,
that she was about to send it immediately, and
I wrote to you at once. It is to be directed to
Nurse Brookes."

"How did you explain that, mother?" George
asked, quickly.

"More lies, more lies," she answered, sadly,
rejoicing in her heart the while to see how he
writhed under the words. " I told her what was
needful in the way of false explanation, and I
made certain of having the bracelets today. So
I must have clone but for a second letter from
my friend Madame de Haulleville, to the effect
that, having a sudden opportunity of sending the
packet to England by a private hand, she had
availed herself of it, at the loss of (at most, she
writes) a day or two."

"Confound her French parsimony!" said
George; "think of the unnecessary risk she
makes us run, when I come down here for
nothing."

"It is not so much parsimony as precaution,
George. And she could know nothing of any
risk."

"What is to be done, then?" he asked, in a
softer tone.

"Can you not remain at Amherst?" asked
his mother. " Have you anything to do which
will prevent your remaining here for a day or
two? If not, you will be as well here as in
London, for there is no danger of Mr.
Carruthers seeing you."

"Suppose he did?" George burst out. " Is he
the lord and master of all England, including
Amherst? Perhaps the sunshine belongs to
him, and the fresh air? If I keep away from
Poynings, that's enough for him, surely."

Mrs. Carruthers had risen, and looked
appealingly at him.

"Remember, George, your misconduct would
justify Mr. Carruthers, in the eyes of the world,
for the course he has taken towards you; or,"
here she moved near to him, and laid her hand
on his arm, "if you refuse to consider that,
remember that Mr. Carruthers is my husband,
and that I love him."

"I will, mother, I will," said George,
impetuously. "Graceless, ungrateful wretch that
I am! I will never say another word against
him. I will remain quietly here, as you
suggest. Shall I stay at the inn? Not under my
own name; under my not very well known but
some day of course widely to be famous pen-
name—Paul Ward. Don't forget it, mother,
write it down; stay, I'll write it for you.
P-a-u-l W-a-r-d." He wrote the name slowly
on a slip of paper, which Mrs. Carruthers
placed between the leaves of her pocket-book.

"You must go now," she said to him; " it is
impossible you can wait here longer. We have
been singularly fortunate as it is. When I write,
I will tell you whether I can come to you here
in the town, I mean—or whether you shall come to
me. I think you will have to come to me. Now
go, my darling boy." She embraced him fondly.

"And you, mother?"

"I will remain here a little longer. I have
really something to say to Mr. Davis."

He went. Black care went with him, and
shame and remorse were busy at his heart.
Would remorse deepen into repentance, and
would repentance bear wholesome fruit of
reformation? That was for the future to
unravel. The present had acute stinging pain in
it, which he longed to stifle, to crush out, to
get away from, anyhow. He loved his mother,
and her beautiful earnest face went with him
along the dusty road; the unshed tears in her
clear dark eyes seemed to drop in burning rain
upon his heart; the pleading tones of her
sorrowful voice filled all the air. How wicked
and wretched, how vain, silly, and insipid, how
worthless and vulgar, all his pleasures and
pursuits seemed now! A new spirit arose in
the wayworn, jaded man; a fresh ambition
sprang up in his heart. "It's a wretched,
low, mean way of getting free, but I have
left myself no choice. I must take advantage
of what she has done for me, and then I never
will wrong her love and generosity again. I
will do right, and not wrong; this is my reso-
lution, and I will work it out, so help me God!"

He had unconsciously come to a stop at the
noble old oak gates, flung hospitably open, of
a wide-spreading park, through one of whose
vistas a grand old mansion in the most elaborate
manner of the Elizabethan style was visible.
He looked up, and the beauty of the prospect
struck him as if it had been created by an
enchanter's wand. He looked back along the
road by which he had come, and found that he
had completely lost sight of Amherst.

He went a pace or two beyond the gate
pillars. A hale old man was employed in
nailing up a trailing branch of jessamine against
the porch of the lodge.

"Good afternoon, old gentleman. This is a
fine place, I fancy."

"Good afternoon, sir. It is a fine place.