asant and
wholesome attempt to redistribute the Bank's property as at least fit
for discussion, and even pardonable--an act due to a mistaken economic
theory--redistribution of property by a free lance, not wearing the
uniform of a School of Political Thought.

"But how long was his term of service?" she asked, coming back into the
fresher air of mere housebreaking.

"I am afraid it was for fourteen years. But I have never known. I can
hardly believe it now, but I know it is true for all that, that he was
convicted and transported without the trial coming to my ears at the
time. I only knew that he had disappeared, and thought it was by his own
choice. And what means had I of finding him, if I had wanted to? _That_
I never did."

"Because of ... because of the girl?"

"Because of the girl Emma.... Oh yes! I was his mother, but ..." She
stopped short. Her meaning was clear; some sons would cripple the
strongest mother's love.

"Then you had to give up the house," said Gwen, to help her away from
the memory that stung her, vividly.

"I gave it up and sold the furniture, all but one or two bits I kept by
me--Dave Wardle's desk, and the arm-chair. I went to a lodging at
Sidcup--a pretty place with honeysuckles round my window. I lived there
a many years, and had friends. Then the railway came, and they pulled
the cottage down--Mrs. Hutchinson's. And all the folk I knew were driven
away--went to America, many of them; all the Hutchinsons went. I
remember that time well. But oh dear--the many moves I had after that! I
cannot tell them all one from another...."

"It tires you to talk. Never mind now. Tell me another time."

"No--I'm not tired. I can talk. Where was I? Oh--the lodgings! I moved
many times--the last time to Sapps Court, not so very long ago. I made
friends with Mrs. Burr at Skillicks, as I told you."

"And that is what made you so poor?"

"Yes. I have only a few hundred pounds of my own, an annuity--it comes
to sixty pounds a year. I have learned how to make it quite enough for
me." Nevertheless, thought Gwen to herself, the good living in her
temporary home in Cavendish Square had begun to tell favourably. Enough
is seldom as good as a feast on sixty pounds a year. The old lady
seemed, however, to dismiss the subject, going on with something
antecedent to it:--"You see now, my dear, why I said 'I hope.' What
could the unhappy boy be to me, or I to him? But I shall never know
where he died, nor when