Felix, Hetta?'

'Ah what can be done? I think sometimes that it will break mamma's
heart.'

'Your mother makes me angry by her continual indulgence.'

'But what can she do? You would not have her turn him into the
street?'

'I do not know that I would not. For a time it might serve him
perhaps. Here is the cab. Here they are. Yes; you had better go down
and let your mother know that I am here. They will perhaps take him up
to bed, so that I need not see him.'

Hetta did as she was bid, and met her mother and her brother in the
hall. Felix having the full use of his arms and legs was able to
descend from the cab, and hurry across the pavement into the house,
and then, without speaking a word to his sister, hid himself in the
dining-room. His face was strapped up with plaister so that not a
feature was visible; and both his eyes were swollen and blue; part of
his beard had been cut away, and his physiognomy had altogether been
so treated that even the page would hardly have known him. 'Roger is
upstairs, mamma,' said Hetta in the hall.

'Has he heard about Felix;--has he come about that?'

'He has heard only what I have told him. He has come because of your
letter. He says that a man named Crumb did it.'

'Then he does know. Who can have told him? He always knows everything.
Oh, Hetta, what am I to do? Where shall I go with this wretched boy?'

'Is he hurt, mamma?'

'Hurt;--of course he is hurt; horribly hurt. The brute tried to kill
him. They say that he will be dreadfully scarred for ever. But oh,
Hetta;--what am I to do with him? What am I to do with myself and
you?'

On this occasion Roger was saved from the annoyance of any personal
intercourse with his cousin Felix. The unfortunate one was made as
comfortable as circumstances would permit in the parlour, and Lady
Carbury then went up to her cousin in the drawing-room. She had
learned the truth with some fair approach to accuracy, though Sir
Felix himself had of course lied as to every detail. There are some
circumstances so distressing in themselves as to make lying almost a
necessity. When a young man has behaved badly about a woman, when a
young man has been beaten without returning a blow, when a young man's
pleasant vices are brought directly under a mother's eyes, what can he
do but lie? How could Sir Felix tell the truth about that rash
encounter? But the policeman who had brought him to the hospital had
told all that he knew. The man who had th