other girl, who went into service, I was told, and perhaps made herself
a useful, honest woman. He died in a hospital, and he was buried at my
expense--not three months before his daughter went off and left me.'

'You will never tell your children,' said Mary, when there had been a
long pause.

'I've often thought it would only be right if I told them. I've often
thought, the last year or two, that Nancy ought to know. It might make
her think, and do her good.'

'No, no,' returned the other hurriedly. 'Never let her know of
it--never. It might do her much harm.'

'You know now, Mary, why I look at the girl so anxiously. She's not like
her mother; not much like her in face, and I can't think she's like her
in heart. But you know what her faults are as well as I do. Whether I've
been right or wrong in giving her a good education, I shall never know.
Wrong, I fear--but I've told you all about that.'

'You don't know whether she's alive or not?' asked Mary, when once more
it was left to her to break silence.

'What do I care? How should I know?'

'Don't be tempted to tell them--either of them!' said the other
earnestly.

'My friend Barmby knows. Whether he's told his son, I can't say; it's
twenty years since we spoke about it. If he _did_ ever mention it to
Samuel, then it might somehow get known to Horace or the girl, when I'm
gone.--I won't give up the hope that young Barmby may be her husband.
She'll have time to think about it. But if ever she should come to you
and ask questions--I mean, if she's been told what happened--you'll set
me right in her eyes? You'll tell her what I've told you?'

'I hope it may never--'

'So do I,' Stephen interrupted, his voice husky with fatigue. 'But
I count on you to make my girl think rightly of me, if ever there's
occasion. I count on you. When I'm dead, I won't have her think that I
was to blame for her mother's ill-doing. That's why I've told you. You
believe me, don't you?'

And Mary, lifting her eyes, met his look of appeal with more than a
friend's confidence.

CHAPTER 2

From chambers in Staple Inn, Lionel Tarrant looked forth upon the
laborious world with a dainty enjoyment of his own limitless leisure.
The old gables fronting upon Holborn pleased his fancy; he liked to pass
under the time-worn archway, and so, at a step, estrange himself from
commercial tumult,--to be in the midst of modern life, yet breathe an
atmosphere of ancient repose.

He belong