all, the
gratification of their purpose was devoid of savour and Ironsyde's
indifferent acquiescence robbed their will of its triumph. He had told
Mary Dinnett, through Ernest Churchouse, that she and her daughter must
proceed as they thought fit and that, in any case, the last word would
be with him. Here, however, he misvalued the strength of the forces
arrayed against him, and only the future proved whether the seed sowed
in Abel Dinnett's youthful heart was fertile or barren--whether, by the
blood in his own veins, he would offer soil of character to develop
enmity to the man who got him, or reveal a nature slow to anger and
impatient of wrath.

For Ernest Churchouse these problems offered occupation and he stood as
an intermediary between the interests that clashed in the child. He made
himself responsible for a measure of the boy's education and, sometimes,
reported to Estelle such development of character as he perceived. In
secret, inspired by the rival claims of heredity and environment, Ernest
strove to cast a scientific horoscope of little Abel's probable future.
But to-day contradicted yesterday, and to-morrow proved both
untrustworthy. The child was always changing, developing new ideas,
indicating new possibilities. It appeared too soon yet to say what he
would be, or predict his character and force of purpose.

Thus he grew, and when he was eight years old, his first friend and
ally--his grandmother--died. Mr. Churchouse, who had long deplored her
influence for Abel's sake, was hopeful that this departure might prove a
blessing.

Now Sabina had taken her mother's place and she looked after Ernest well
enough. He always hoped that she would marry, and she had been asked to
do so more than once, but felt tempted to no such step.

Thus, then, things stood, and any change of focus and altered outlook in
these people, that may serve to suggest discontinuity with their past,
must be explained by the passage of ten years. Such a period had renewed
all physically--a fact full of subtle connotations. It had sharpened the
youthful and matured the adult mind; it had dimmed the senses sinking
upon nature's night time and strengthened the dawning will and opening
intellect. For as a ship furls her spread of sail on entering harbour,
so age reduces the scope of the mind and its energies to catch every
fresh ripple of the breeze that blows out of progress and change. The
centre of the stage, too, gradually reveals