h! curse me! I won't be more
of a cad than I am now by laying the blame on you. I could have helped
it, but you couldn't. We are born and bred that way, over here. The
petty lines of distinction our ancestors drew for us,--we bow down and
worship them, and say God drew them. Over here a man hides the sun with
his own hand and then cries out, 'Where is it?'"

"I would comfort you if I could, but this sounds very much like ranting.
I thought you had outlived that sort of thing, my son."

"Thank God, no. I've been very hard pressed of late, but I've not
outlived it."

"You will tell me this trouble--now--before you leave me? You must, dear
boy." He took the hand she put out to him, and held it in silence; then,
incoherently, in a voice humbled and low,--almost lost in the rumbling
of the carriage,--he told her. It was a revelation of the soul, and as
the mother listened she too suffered and wept, but did not relent.

Cassandra's cry, "I am a strangah!" sounded in her ears, but her sorrow
was for her son. Yes, she was a stranger, and had wisely taken herself
back to her own place; what else could she do? Was it not in the nature
of a Providence that David had been delayed until after her departure?
The duty now devolved upon herself to comfort him without further
reproof, but nevertheless to make him see and do his duty in the
position he had been called to fill.

"Of course she has charm, David, and evidently good sense as well."

"How do you mean?"

"To perceive the inevitable and return without fuss or complaint to her
own station in life."

For an instant he sat stunned, and ere he could give utterance to his
rage, she resumed, "Naturally, marriage now, in your own class can't be;
you'll simply have to live as a bachelor." David groaned. "Why, my son,
many do, of their own choice, and you have managed to be happy during
this year."

He glanced at his watch. "Eleven o'clock,--can't--"

"There's no use urging the horses so; we can't make it."

"We may, mother, we may." He half rose as if he would leap from the
vehicle. "I could go faster on foot. There's a quarter of an hour yet
before the Liverpool express. John, can't we get on faster than this?"

"No, my lord. One of the 'orses has picked up a stone. If you'll 'old
'em I'll dig it out in 'alf a minute, my lord."

David sprang out and took the reins. "Where's the footman?" he asked
testily.

"You left 'im behind, my lord. He was 'elping Lady Laura cut r