ll and that you want something of me."

"My dear young man I, at all events, know one thing about you very
clearly, and that is that I trust you."

"I want nothing of you," said Augustine, but he still smiled, so that
his words did not seem discourteous.

"Nothing? Really nothing? I am your mother's friend, and you want
nothing of me? I have sought her out; I came today to see and
understand; I have not made her ill; she was nearly crying when we came
into the room, you and I, a little while ago. What I see and understand
makes me sad and angry. And I believe that you, too, see and understand;
I believe that you, too, are sad and angry. And I want to help you. I
want you, when you come into the world, as you must, to bring your
mother. I'll be waiting there for you both. I am a sort of
fairy-godmother. I want to see justice done."

"I suppose you mean that you are angry with my father and want to see
justice done on him," said Augustine after a pause.

Again Lady Elliston sat suddenly still, as if another, an unexpected
bullet, had whizzed past her. "What makes you say that?" she asked after
a moment.

"What you have said and what you have seen. He had been making her cry,"
said Augustine. He was still calm, but now, under the calm, she heard,
like the thunder of the sea in caverns deep beneath a placid headland,
the muffled sound of a hidden, a dark indignation.

"Yes," she said, looking into his eyes; "that made me angry; and that he
should take all her money from her, as I am sure he does, and leave her
to live like this."

Augustine's colour rose. He turned away his eyes and seemed to ponder.

"I do want something of you, after all; the answer to one question," he
said at last. "Is it because of him that she is cloistered here?"

In a flash Lady Elliston had risen to her emergency, her opportunity.
She was grave, she was ready, and she was very careful.

"It was her own choice," she said.

Augustine pondered again. He, too, was grave and careful She saw how,
making use of her proffered help, he yet held her at a distance. "That
does not answer my question," he said. "I will put it in another way. Is
it because of some evil in his life that she is cloistered?"

Lady Elliston sat before him in one of the high-backed chairs; the light
was behind her: the delicate oval of her face maintained its steady
attitude: in the twilit room Augustine could see her eyes fixed very
strangely upon him. She, too, was p