Bourhill was not worth very much.

This letter reached the offender when he was seated at his father's
breakfast-table with the other members of the family. He slipped it into
his pocket, and his mother, keenly watching him, observed a curious
look, half surprise, half relief, on his face. She was not therefore in
the least surprised when he came to her immediately after breakfast for
a moment's private conversation.

'I've had a letter from Aunt Isabel, written at Bourhill last night; you
can read it if you like.'

She took it from him eagerly, and perused it with intense interest. Like
her son, she had really abandoned hope, and had accepted the silence of
Gladys as her lover's final dismissal.

'This is extraordinary, George,' she said excitedly. 'The girl has been,
and gone, evidently, and never uttered a word. Can you believe it?'

'I must. Gladys would not be fretting, as Aunt Isabel says she is, if
she knew all that. What shall I do?'

His mother thought a moment. She had been very unhappy during the last
two weeks, daily dreading the revelation of the miserable story which
would make her idolised boy the centre of an unpleasant scandal. Her
relief was almost too great, and it was a few minutes before she could
collect her thoughts and gather up the scattered threads of her former
ambition.

'You may have a chance yet. It is a slender one; but still I advise you
to make instant use of it. Go down and make it up with Gladys, at any
cost. If she has heard nothing, and is at all pliable, press for an
early marriage.'

She gave the advice in all good faith, and without a thought of the
great moral wrong she was committing. The supreme selfishness of her
motherly idolatry blinded her to the cruel injustice she was meting out
to the innocent girl whose heritage she coveted for her son. Yet she
counted herself a Christian woman, and would have had nothing but
indignant scorn for the individual who might presume to question her
right to such a title.

This is no solitary or exceptional case. Such things are done daily,
and religion is made the cloak to cover a multitude of sins. Mrs.
Fordyce had so long striven to serve both God and Mammon that she had
lost the fine faculty which can discern the dividing line. In other
words, her conscience was dead, and allowed her to give this deplorable
advice without a dissenting word.

'It would be deuced awkward,' said the amiable George, 'if anything were
to come out