hout luxuries and society and amusements; but I love you, my dear
son, and it will break my heart if you ruin yourself. It's true I
thought of Winifred's money, but she is very fond of you, Horace; her
mother has told me she is. And it was because of my own position. I have
spent nearly all my husband left me; it wasn't enough to supply me
with an income; I could only hope that something--that you, dear, would
forgive your poor mother, and help her. If you cast me off, what shall I
do?'

There was a silence. Then the young man spoke gravely:

'You are welcome, mother, to half my income. But you must leave me free
to marry as I like.'

'Then I can't take a penny from you,' she answered, weeping. 'If you
ruin yourself, you ruin me as well.'

'The ruin would come if I married Winifred. I love Fanny; I love her
with all my heart and soul, and have never ceased to love her. Tell me
what you like about her, it will make no difference.'

A fit of violent coughing stopped his speech; he turned away, and stood
by the window, holding his handkerchief to his mouth.

Mrs. Damerel sank upon a chair in mute misery.

CHAPTER 3

Below the hill at Harrow, in a byway which has no charm but that of
quietness, stands a row of small plain houses, built not long ago,
yet at a time when small houses were constructed with some regard for
soundness and durability. Each contains six rooms, has a little strip
of garden in the rear, and is, or was in 1889, let at a rent of
six-and-twenty pounds. The house at the far end of the row (as the
inhabitants described it) was then tenanted by Mary Woodruff, and with
her, as a lodger, lived Mrs. Tarrant.

As a lodger, seeing that she paid a specified weekly sum for her shelter
and maintenance; in no other respect could the wretched title apply to
her. To occupy furnished lodgings, is to live in a house owned and ruled
by servants; the least tolerable status known to civilisation. From her
long experience at Falmouth, Nancy knew enough of the petty miseries
attendant upon that condition to think of it with dread when the stress
of heroic crisis compelled her speedy departure from the old home. It is
seldom that heroic crisis bears the precise consequence presumed by
the actors in it; supreme moments are wont to result in some form
of compromise. So Nancy, prepared to go forth into the wilderness of
landladies, babe in arm, found that so dreary a self-sacrifice neither
was exacted of her,