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"Not always. But I am sorry it came to light in this way."
"Sorry! it is the greatest boon that could have fallen on me. The secret is, so to say, off my mind now, and I can breathe as I have not breathed for years. If ever a heartfelt thanksgiving went up to Heaven one from me will ascend to-night. And the dowager does not feel the past a bit. She cared no more for Maude than for any one else. She can't care for any one. Don't think me harsh, Carr, in saying so."
"I am sure she does not feel it," emphatically a.s.sented Mr. Carr. "Had she felt it she would have been less noisy. Thank heaven for your sake, Hartledon, that the miserable past is over."
"And over more happily than I deserved."
A silence ensued, and Lord Hartledon flung the bits of paper carefully into the fire. Presently he looked up, a strange earnestness in his face.
"It is the custom of some of our cottagers here to hang up embossed cards at the foot of their bed, with texts of Scripture written on them. There is one verse I should like to hang before every son of mine, though I had ten of them, that it might meet their eyes last ere the evening's sleeping, in the morning's first awakening. The ninth verse of the eleventh chapter of Ecclesiastes."
"I don't remember," observed Thomas Carr, after a pause of thought.
"'Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth: and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things G.o.d will bring thee into judgment.'"
THE END
