deprecatory curtsey and laughed.
"And yet I _am_ grateful."

"Yes," he answered gravely; "I understand. But since you do not quite
despise my scheme, will you come and discuss it with me, believing only
that I am in earnest?"

So it was arranged that Hester should call on him next evening and go
through the plans he had been preparing for a week past. That such an
interview defied convention scarcely crossed her mind or his, Sir George
being one of those men who can neglect convention because their essential
honour stands above question. He received her in his library, and for an
hour they talked as might two men of business in friendly committee for
some public good.

"By the way," said he, glancing up from his papers, "you were talking
yesterday of public orphanages. Have you heard that your little friend
Clem--the blind child--has been packed off to one?"

"To an orphanage?" Hester echoed. "The children were not at school
to-day, but I had not heard a sound of this."

"It is true; for I happened to call in at the station this morning, and
there on the platform I met Rosewarne with the child. The man was taking
his ticket to Paddington--a single ticket half-fare; and overhearing this
as we stood together by the booking-office, I made bold to ask him a few
questions. The child was to travel alone, in charge of the guard; to be
met at the journey's end, I suppose, by an official, and taken out to the
orphanage--I forget its name--an institution for the blind somewhere out
in the south-eastern suburbs."

"Poor Myra!"

"'Poor Clem!' I should rather say. He was not crying over it, but he
looked pretty forlorn and white, and his blindness made it pitiable.
I call it brutal; the man at least might have travelled up for company.
A journey of three hundred miles!"

Nevertheless, Hester chiefly pitied Myra. As for Clem, the news relieved
her mind in part; since after witnessing Mr. Sam's outburst, she had more
than once shivered at the thought of child and uncle continuing to live
under one roof.

Poor Myra had spent the day pacing up and down her room like a caged
beast. The fate decreed and overhanging Clem had been concealed from her.
Had it been less incredible, instinct surely would have wakened her
suspicions before the last moment. At the last moment Susannah, having to
dress the child for his journey, met inquiries with the half-hearted lie
that he was bound on a trip to Plymouth with his uncle,