friend while she lived. But Miss Charteris rarely yielded
to any emotion; she had laid her hand in his and said:

"Goodbye, Ronald--God bless you! Be brave; it is not one great deed
that makes a hero. The man who bears trouble well is the greatest hero
of all."

As he left his home in that quiet starlit night, Ronald little thought
that, while his mother lay weeping as though her heart would break, a
beautiful face, wet with bitter tears, watched him from one of the
upper windows, and his father, shut up alone, listened to every sound,
and heard the door closed behind his son as he would have heard his own
death knell.

The next day Lady Charteris and her daughter left Earlescourt. Lord
Earle gave no sign of the heavy blow which had struck him. He was their
attentive host while they remained; he escorted them to their carriage,
and parted from them with smiling words. Then he went back to the
house, where he was never more to hear the sound of the voice he loved
best on earth.

As the days and months passed, and the young heir did not return,
wonder and surprise reigned at Earlescourt. Lord Earle never mentioned
his son's name. People said he had gone abroad, and was living
somewhere in Italy. To Lord Earl it seemed that his life was ended; he
had no further plans, ambition died away; the grand purpose of his life
would never be fulfilled.

Lady Earle said nothing of the trouble that had fallen upon her. She
hoped against hope that the time would come when her husband would
pardon their only son. Valentine Charteris bore her disappointment
well. She never forgot the simple, chivalrous man who had clung to her
friendship and relied so vainly upon her influence.

Many lovers sighed round Valentine. One after another she dismissed
them. She was waiting until she saw some one like Ronald Earle--like
him in all things save the weakness which had so fatally shadowed his
life.

Chapter IX

In a small, pretty villa, on the banks of the Arno, Ronald Earle
established himself with his young wife. He had gone direct to
Eastham, after leaving Earlescourt, his heart aching with sorrow for
home and all that he had left there, and beating high with joy at the
thought that now nothing stood between him and Dora. He told her of the
quarrel--of his father's stern words--and Dora, as he had foreseen
clung round his neck and wept.

She would love him all the more, she said. She must love him enough to
make up