ion?'

'I can hardly tell you that, Mary, any more than I can tell whether
Warren Hastings deserved the abuse that was wreaked upon him at one
time, or the acquittal that gave the lie to his slanderers in after
years. The events occurred forty years ago--the story was only half
known then, and like all such stories formed the basis for every kind of
exaggeration and perversion.'

'Does Maulevrier know?' faltered Mary.

'Maulevrier knows all that is known by the general public, and no more.'

'And you have married the granddaughter of a disgraced man,' said Mary,
with a piteous look. 'Did you know--when you married me?'

'As much as I know now, dear love. If you had been Jonathan Wild's
granddaughter you would have been just as dear to me. I married _you_,
dearest; I love _you_; I believe in _you_. All the grandfathers in
Christendom would not shake my faith by one tittle.'

She threw herself into his arms, and sobbed upon his breast. But sweet
as this assurance of his love was to her, she was not the less stricken
by shame at the thought of possible infamy in the past, a shameful
memory for ever brooding over her name in the present.

'Society never forgets a scandal,' she said: 'I have heard Maulevrier
say that.'

'Society has a long memory for other people's sins, but it only avenges
its own wrongs. Give the wicked fairy Society a bad dinner, or leave her
out of your invitation list for a ball, and she will twit you with the
crimes or the misfortunes of a remote ancestor--she will go about
talking of your grandfather the leper, or your great aunt who ran away
with her footman. But so long as the wicked fairy gets all she wants out
of you, she cares not a straw for the misdeeds of past generations.'

He spoke lightly, laughingly almost, and then he ordered the dogcart to
be brought round immediately, and he drove Mary across the hills towards
Langdale, to bring the colour back to her blanched cheeks. He brought
her home in time to give her grandmother an hour for letter-writing
before luncheon, while he walked up and down the terrace below Lady
Maulevrier's windows, meditating the course he was to take.

He was to leave Westmoreland next day to take his place in the House of
Lords during the last important debate of the session. He made up his
mind that before he left he would seek an interview with Lady
Maulevrier, and boldly ask her to explain the mystery of that old man's
presence at Fellside. He was her