he bitterness of her heart: "It isn't
true--I know it isn't true! And if it is--how did I know--how could I
have known?"

Mrs. Ledley looked at her with hard eyes.

"If you had cared for me at all," she said dully, "you would not have
married him without my consent. I've been a good mother to you, and this
is the reward I get. It was only of yourself you thought when you
married him. You never thought of me at all."

Faith looked up, her face all flushed and quivering.

"It was only of you I thought," she sobbed, "you and the twins. I wanted
you to be rich--I wanted them to go to a good school and he promised and
I knew he was rich!..."

Mrs. Ledley clenched her hand.

"I would rather die than take a penny of his money," she said
passionately. "Money made dishonestly--from the ruin of other men's
lives."

Mr. Shawyer made another attempt.

"All this may or may not be true," he said smoothly; "but at any rate no
fault can be attached to this child here." He laid a kind hand on
Faith's arm. "And if you will forgive my saying so, Mrs. Ledley, it is
very cruel to her to speak in this way."

Mrs. Ledley turned and faced him proudly across the table.

"I loved my husband," she said, "and if you think--even for my
daughter's sake--I shall ever receive Ralph Scammel into my house, you
make a very great mistake! Faith has married him, and she can do as she
pleases, of course, but it will mean a choice between her husband and
me. That is my last word," and she turned and walked out of the room,
leaving Faith sobbing in her chair.

Mr. Shawyer rose to his feet and began pacing the room. He hated scenes,
and during his lifetime he had been forced into a great many. He was
unutterably relieved when Faith stopped crying and put her handkerchief
away. Something of the childishness in her face seemed to have deepened
to womanhood as, for a moment, she raised her brown eyes to him.

"And what am I to do now?" she asked.

Mr. Shawyer spread his hands.

"My dear young lady, how can I advise you beyond saying that the only
thing to do is to wait until Nicholas Forrester comes home. He is your
husband and rightful guardian, and if you love him you know what course
to adopt. Even if--if what your mother says is a fact, he has not
injured you knowingly, at all events. You say he has been all that is
kind and good. Well, that is all that concerns you! A man's past is his
own."

It was an easy and comfortable doctrine from h