of tea to Paul.

'I may tell you, Mr. Armstrong,' said Madge's mother, 'that, if you
think it worth while to call it winning, you have won. You have very
nearly broken an old woman's heart in doing it, and you may break a
girl's heart into the bargain before you have done. But my son George is
in London, and I have made up my mind to let Madge go home and join
him there. Her sister will go with her and will be her companion on the
voyage, and I shall follow so soon as I can dispose of my interests in
this country. I am uprooting my household and leaving all my friends;
and I am doing it, Mr. Armstrong, for a man of whom I know next to
nothing. I am almost certain that I am not acting wisely, and I am
not quite sure that I am not acting wickedly. I know out of my own
experience of the world that marriage can make a woman miserable if
it were blessed by all the parsons living, but you are taking a
responsibility a great deal bigger than that of any husband, and I
am taking such a responsibility as no mother ought to take. And now,
Madge,' she said, 'I want to speak to Mr. Armstrong in private for one
minute. Come back when I call you.'

Madge stole obediently away, and when the door had closed behind her,
Mrs. Hampton leaned forward and spoke in a half-whisper, with her hand
stretched out before the listener like a hovering bird.

'I have my child's promise,' she said, 'and I know that I can trust to
it But I must have your undertaking that you will place her safely in
her brother's hands, and that you will treat her with as much respect as
if she were engaged to be married to you.'

'Madam,' Paul broke out, 'I pledge myself absolutely. I could hold no
pledge so sacred.'

'I shall follow,' said Mrs. Hampton, 'within two or three months.
My child will have had another half-year in which to know you and to
understand your intentions towards her. I have no fear of her; but
if you violate your promise in the slightest, you will act like a
scoundrel, and I have Madge's undertaking that she will be candid with
me. There is no more to be said now until we meet in England. I may
tell you just this, Mr. Armstrong: we two have spent every night since
I first saw you in each other's arms in tears. I am giving you a proof
that I think well of you on very slender grounds. If you are in the
least worthy my good opinion, you will think sometimes of what I have
just told you.'

He stooped and kissed her hand, and when she drew it