son Ralph Thornton
Daverill," on coming of age, all his property after "my wife Maisie,
_nee_ Runciman," had received the share she was "legally entitled to."
But she was unable to produce proof of her marriage when called on to do
so, and was, of course, legally entitled to nothing. Thornton had been
so well off that "widow's thirds" would have placed her in comfortable
circumstances. As it was, the whole of his property went to her only
surviving son, a youth who had inherited, with some of his father's good
looks, all his bad principles; and in addition a taint--we may
suppose--of the penal atmosphere in which he was born. But there was not
a shadow of doubt about his being the person named in the will. Perhaps,
if it had been worded "my lawful son," Themis would have jibbed.

The young man, on coming of age, acquired control of the whole of his
father's property, and soon started on a career of extravagance and
debauchery. His mother, however, retained some influence over him, and
persuaded him, a year later, before he had had time to dissipate the
whole of his inheritance, to return with her to England, hoping that the
moral effect of a change from the gaol-bird atmosphere of felony that
hung over the whole land of his birth would develop whatever germ of
honour or right feeling he possessed.

She was not very sanguine, for his boyhood had been a cruel affliction
to her. And the results showed that whatever hopes she had entertained
were ill-founded. Arrived in London, with money still at command, he
plunged at once into all the dissipations of the town, and it became
evident that in the course of a year or so he would run through the
remainder of his patrimony.

About this time he met with an experience which now and then happens to
men of his class. He fell violently in love--or in what he called
love--with a girl who had very distinct ideas on the subject of
marriage. One was that the first arrangement of their relations which
suggested themselves to her lover were not to be entertained, and
therefore she refused to entertain them. He tried ridicule, indignation,
and protestation--all in vain! She appeared not to object to
persecution--rather liked it. But she held out no hopes except
legitimate ones. At last, when the young man was in a sense
desperate--not in a very noble sense, but desperate for all that--she
intimated to him that, unless he was prepared to accept her scheme of
life, she knew a very respe