e to Charlotte. But he was much moved
and excited by those earnest words of love and approval. He felt as
though a laurel wreath had been placed on his head, and he wondered
would his first brief, his first sense of legal triumph, be sweeter to
him than the look in that mother's face this morning.

"And it was so easily won," he said to himself. "For who but a brute
under the circumstances could have acted otherwise?"

In writing to Charlotte he told her all. It was a relief to pour out his
heart to her, though of course he carefully kept back names.

By return of post he received her answer.

"I must do something for that mother. You will not let me come to her.
But if I cannot and must not come, I can at least help with money. How
much money shall I send you?"

To this Hinton answered,--

"None. She is a proud woman. She would not accept it."

As he put this second letter in the post, he felt that any money gift
between these two Charlottes would be impossible. During little Harold's
illness he had put away all thoughts of the possibility of Mrs. Home
being entitled to any of his Charlotte's wealth. The near and likely
approach of death had put far from his mind all ideas of money. But now,
with the return of the usual routine of life in this small and humble
house, came back to Hinton's mind the thoughts which had so sorely
troubled him on the night on which Charlotte had told him Mrs. Home's
story. For his own personal convenience and benefit he had put away
these thoughts. He had decided that he could not move hand or foot in
the matter. But in the very house with this woman, though he might so
resolve not to act, he could not put the sense of the injustice done to
her away from his heart. He pondered on it and grew uneasy as to the
righteousness of his own conduct. As this uneasiness gathered strength,
he even avoided Mrs. Home's presence. For the first time, too, in his
life Hinton was beginning to realize what a very ugly thing
poverty--particularly the poverty of the upper classes--really is. To
make things easier for this family in their time of illness, he had
insisted on having what meals he took in the house, in the room with Mr.
and Mrs. Home. He would not, now that Harold was better, change this
custom. But though he liked it, it brought him into direct contact with
the small shifts necessary to make so slender a purse as their's cover
their necessary expenses. Mr. Home noticed nothing; but Mrs. Ho