your own, so you must not be cast down. Tell me
about it--Or stay! Shall I call Lilias? She is at the Grange, but I
could send for her at once."

She paused, looking inquiringly into Ned's face, and he hesitated
painfully, the colour flushing in his thin cheeks, his eyebrows
twitching nervously.

"I think--not!" he said slowly at last. "She will hear soon enough, and
she is so young and inexperienced that she cannot understand. Let me
first talk it over with you, Maud, and then--No! It was no fault of
mine, though in the last instance it was I who gave in my resignation.
I could not stay on longer, and keep my self-respect. Positions were
forced upon me impossible to any man of honour. My post was
deliberately made untenable, and to stay on would have been the act of a
coward and a scoundrel. They had got what they wanted out of me, and I
was of no further use. It only remained to get rid of me as quickly as
possible,--and, mark you, by my own doing in the last instance, so that
they might preserve some appearance of honour before their neighbours!"

"But can such things be?" Maud wondered incredulously. "Is it really
possible that men, calling themselves gentlemen and, I suppose,
Christians, can be so absorbed in the idea of growing rich that they can
be so low, so base? To go to a young fellow who is fighting against
hard odds, to propose a scheme which looks fair and smooth, to suck his
brains and steal his business from him, and then--then--to treat him as
you say, and send him out on the world alone! Oh, Ned, is it possible?
One can hardly believe in such wickedness. Are there many such people
in your business world?"

"Not many, thank God! but there are a few who are notorious for
absorbing small firms, and treating their owners as I have been treated.
They build up huge fortunes, and we are ruined; they succeed, and we
fail, and the world goes on as usual, and no one sees any difference, or
takes any thought of the poor fellows who have gone to the wall."

"God does!" said Maud softly. "God doesn't think they have failed! In
His eyes they have succeeded, and are rich, while the others are ruined
and outcast. Don't be cast down, Ned--don't lose hope! God is on your
side, and has some good purpose behind this trouble. The clouds are
dark to-day, and you cannot see it, but in years to come it will be
plain. Keep a brave heart, and don't grieve too much over what is past.
You have the future