for a daughter, strangely restored to her, after
long separation that had made her a memory of a name. It was mixed with
the ready compliance one imputes to the fortunate owner of a Guardian
Angel, who is deserving of his luck. No doubt also with the fact that no
living creature, great or small, ever said nay to Gwen. But, for
whatever reason, she complied, and wondered.

Remember, too, the enforced associations of her previous experience.
Think how soon the conditions of her early youth--which, if they
afforded no high culture, were at least those of a respected middle
class in English provincial life--came to an end, and what they gave
place to! Then, on her return to England, how little chance her
antecedents and her son's vicious inherited disposition gave her of
resuming the position she would have been entitled to had her exile, and
its circumstances, not made the one she had to submit to abnormal! Aunt
M'riar and Mrs. Burr were good women, but those who study class-niceties
would surely refuse to _ranger_ either with Granny Marrable. And even
that old lady is scarcely a fair illustration; for, had her sister's
bridegroom been what the bride believed him, the social outcome of the
marriage would have been all but the same as of her own, had she wedded
his elder brother.

It is little wonder that old Mrs. Picture, who once was Maisie, should
succumb to the influences of this dazzling creature with all the world
at her feet. And less that these influences grew upon her, when there
was none to see, and hamper free speech with conventions. For when they
were alone, it came about that either unpacked her heart to the other,
and Gwen gave all the tale of the shadow on her own love in exchange
for that of the blacker shadows of the galleys--of the convict's cheated
wife, and the terrible inheritance of his son.

The story is sorry to have to admit that Gwen's bad faith to the old
lady, in the matter of her pledge of secrecy, did not show itself only
in her repetition of the story to her lover and his sister. She told her
father, a nobleman with all sorts of old-fashioned prejudices, among
others that of disliking confidences entrusted to him in disregard of
solemn oaths of secrecy. His protest intercepted his daughter's
revelation at the outset. "Unprincipled young monkey!" he exclaimed.
"You mustn't tell me when you've promised not to. Didn't you, now?"

"Of course I did! But _you_ don't count. Papas don't, when trus