ved Bob--who
of four children was their only son--and firmly intended to do their
best for him; and as they knew what was best for him, it followed
that Bob must conform. He was a light-coloured, docile boy, with a
pleasantly ingenuous face and an affectionate disposition; and he
loved his parents, and learned to lean on them.

They sent him in time to Marlborough, where he wrote Latin verses of
slightly unusual merit, and bowled with a break from the off which
meant that there lay a thin vein of genius somewhere inside of him.
When once collared, his bowling became futile; success made it deadly,
and on one occasion in a school match against the M.C.C. he did things
at Lord's which caused a thin gathering of spectators--the elderly
men who never miss a match--to stare at him very attentively as he
returned to the pavilion. They thought it worth while to ask, "Which
'Varsity was he bound for?"

Bob was bound for neither. He had to inherit, and consented to
inherit, his father's practice without question. His consuming desire
to go up to Oxford he hinted at once, and once only, in a conversation
with his father; but Mr. Haydon "did not care to expose his son to the
temptations which beset young men at the Universities"--this was
the very text--and preferred to keep him under his own eye in the
seclusion of Tregarrick.

To a young man who is being shielded from temptation in a small
provincial town there usually happens one of two things. Either he
takes to drink or to discreditable essays in love-making. It is to
Bob's credit that he did neither; a certain delicate sanity in the
fellow kept him from these methods of killing time. Instead, he spent
his evenings at home; listened to his parents' talk; accepted their
opinions on human conduct and affairs; and tumbled honourably into
love with his sisters' governess.

Ethel Ormiston, the governess, was about a year older than Bob, good
to look at, and the only being who understood what ailed Bob's soul
during this time. She was in prison herself, poor woman. Mrs. Haydon
asserted afterwards that Miss Ormiston had "deliberately set herself
to inveigle" the boy; but herein Mrs. Haydon was mistaken. As a matter
of fact Bob, having discovered someone obliging and intelligent enough
to listen, dinned the story of his aspirations into the girl's ear
with the persistent egoism of a hobbedehoy. It must be allowed,
however, that the counsel she gave him would have annoyed his par