sorts of difficult boys, like himself, and
they wouldn't help him, and he'd come out harder than he went in."

His heart yielded to her at last, even though his head still doubted,
for Raymond's attitude to Estelle had begun insensibly to change since
his accident in the cricket field. From that time he won a glimpse of
things that apparently others already knew. Sabina, in their recorded
conversation, had bluntly told him that Estelle loved him; and while the
man dismissed the idea as an absurdity, it was certain that from this
period he began to grow somewhat more sentimentally interested in her.
The interest developed very slowly, but this business of Abel brought
them closer together, for she haunted him during the days before the
child came to his trial, and when, perhaps for her sake as much as any
other reason, Raymond decided to undertake his son's defence, her
gratitude was great.

He made it clear to her that she was responsible for his determination.

"I've let you over-rule me, Estelle," he told her. "Don't forget it,
Chicky. And now that the boy will, I hope, be in my hands, you must
strengthen my hands all you can and help me to make him my friend."

She promised thankfully.

"Be sure I shall never, never forget," she said, "and I shall never be
happy till he knows what you really are, and what you wish him. You must
win him now. It's surely contrary to all natural instinct if you can't.
The mere fact that you can forgive him for what he tried to do, ought to
soften his heart."

"I trust more to you than myself," he answered.

CHAPTER X

THE ADVERTISEMENT

Raymond Ironsyde had his way, and local justices, familiar with the
situation, were content not to commit Abel, but leave the boy in his
father's hands. He took all responsibility and, when the time came, sent
his son to a good boarding-school at Yeovil. Sabina so far met him that
the operation was conducted in her name, and since the case of Abel had
been kept out of local papers, his fellow scholars knew nothing of his
errors. But his difficulties of character were explained to those now
set over him, and they were warned that his moral education, while
attempted, had not so far been successful.

Perhaps only one of those concerned much sympathised with Ironsyde in
his painful ordeal. Those who did not openly assert that he was reaping
what he had sown, were indifferent. Some, like Mr. Motyer, held the
incident a joke; one only pos