y failed to understand you. If he had married a fool, his conduct
would be intelligible enough. He would have done wisely to conceal from
a fool that he had been married already, and that he had suffered the
horrid public exposure of a Trial for the murder of his wife. Then,
again, he would have been quite right, when this same fool had
discovered the truth, to take himself out of her way before she could
suspect him of poisoning he r--for the sake of the peace and quiet of
both parties. But you are not a fool. I can see that, after only a short
experience of you. Why can't he see it too? Why didn't he trust you
with his secret from the first, instead of stealing his way into your
affections under an assumed name? Why did he plan (as he confessed to
me) to take you away to the Mediterranean, and to keep you abroad,
for fear of some officious friends at home betraying him to you as the
prisoner of the famous Trial? What is the plain answer to all these
questions? What is the one possible explanation of this otherwise
unaccountable conduct? There is only one answer, and one explanation. My
poor, wretched son--he takes after his father; he isn't the least like
me!--is weak: weak in his way of judging, weak in his way of acting,
and, like all weak people, headstrong and unreasonable to the last
degree. There is the truth! Don't get red and angry. I am as fond of
him as you are. I can see his merits too. And one of them is that he has
married a woman of spirit and resolution--so faithful and so fond of
him that she won't even let his own mother tell her of his faults. Good
child! I like you for hating me!"

"Dear madam, don't say that I hate you!" I exclaimed (feeling very much
as if I did hate her, though, for all that). "I only presume to think
that you are confusing a delicate-minded man with a weak-minded man. Our
dear unhappy Eustace--"

"Is a delicate-minded man," said the impenetrable Mrs. Macallan,
finishing my sentence for me. "We will leave it there, my dear, and get
on to another subject. I wonder whether we shall disagree about that
too?"

"What is the subject, madam?"

"I won't tell you if you call me madam. Call me mother. Say, 'What is
the subject, mother?'"

"What is the subject, mother?"

"Your notion of turning yourself into a Court of Appeal for a new Trial
of Eustace, and forcing the world to pronounce a just verdict on him. Do
you really mean to try it?"

"I do!"

Mrs. Macallan considered for