to set up
this defence before the magistrate, though we had no doubt about its
being the true one.

Theobald acted with a readier and acuter moral sense than I had given him
credit for.

"I will have nothing more to do with him," he exclaimed promptly, "I will
never see his face again; do not let him write either to me or to his
mother; we know of no such person. Tell him you have seen me, and that
from this day forward I shall put him out of my mind as though he had
never been born. I have been a good father to him, and his mother
idolised him; selfishness and ingratitude have been the only return we
have ever had from him; my hope henceforth must be in my remaining
children."

I told him how Ernest's fellow curate had got hold of his money, and
hinted that he might very likely be penniless, or nearly so, on leaving
prison. Theobald did not seem displeased at this, but added soon
afterwards: "If this proves to be the case, tell him from me that I will
give him a hundred pounds if he will tell me through you when he will
have it paid, but tell him not to write and thank me, and say that if he
attempts to open up direct communication either with his mother or
myself, he shall not have a penny of the money."

Knowing what I knew, and having determined on violating Miss Pontifex's
instructions should the occasion arise, I did not think Ernest would be
any the worse for a complete estrangement from his family, so I
acquiesced more readily in what Theobald had proposed than that gentleman
may have expected.

Thinking it better that I should not see Christina, I left Theobald near
Battersby and walked back to the station. On my way I was pleased to
reflect that Ernest's father was less of a fool than I had taken him to
be, and had the greater hopes, therefore, that his son's blunders might
be due to postnatal, rather than congenital misfortunes. Accidents which
happen to a man before he is born, in the persons of his ancestors, will,
if he remembers them at all, leave an indelible impression on him; they
will have moulded his character so that, do what he will, it is hardly
possible for him to escape their consequences. If a man is to enter into
the Kingdom of Heaven, he must do so, not only as a little child, but as
a little embryo, or rather as a little zoosperm--and not only this, but
as one that has come of zoosperms which have entered into the Kingdom of
Heaven before him for many generations. Accidents whic