Presbyterian conscience. Though she inherited that conscience,
I have often thought she might have succeeded in casting it off--or at
least some of it--had it not been for the fact that in spite of herself
she worshipped its incarnation in the shape of my father. Her voice
trembled a little as she drew me to the sofa beside the window.

"Tell me about what happened, my son," she said.

It was a terrible moment for me. For my affections were still
quiveringly alive in those days, and I loved her. I had for an instant
an instinctive impulse to tell her the whole story,--South Sea Islands
and all! And I could have done it had I not beheld looming behind her
another figure which represented a stern and unsympathetic Authority,
and somehow made her, suddenly, of small account. Not that she would
have understood the romance, but she would have comprehended me. I knew
that she was powerless to save me from the wrath to come. I wept. It was
because I hated to lie to her,--yet I did so. Fear gripped me, and--like
some respectable criminals I have since known--I understood that any
confession I made would inexorably be used against me.... I wonder
whether she knew I was lying? At any rate, the case appeared to be a
grave one, and I was presently remanded to my room to be held over for
trial....

Vividly, as I write, I recall the misery of the hours I have spent,
while awaiting sentence, in the little chamber with the honeysuckle
wall-paper and steel engravings of happy but dumpy children romping in
the fields and groves. On this particular March afternoon the weather
had become morne, as the French say; and I looked down sadly into the
grey back yard which the wind of the morning had strewn with chips from
the Petrel. At last, when shadows were gathering in the corners of the
room, I heard footsteps. Ella appeared, prim and virtuous, yet a little
commiserating. My father wished to see me, downstairs. It was not the
first time she had brought that summons, and always her manner was the
same!

The scene of my trials was always the sitting room, lined with grim
books in their walnut cases. And my father sat, like a judge, behind the
big desk where he did his work when at home. Oh, the distance between us
at such an hour! I entered as delicately as Agag, and the expression in
his eye seemed to convict me before I could open my mouth.

"Hugh," he said, "your mother tells me that you have confessed to going,
without permission, to