some consideration, her experience of her granddaughter suggested
that a little exercise of mercy might be attended with the right
result. She looked at a cake on the sideboard. "I have only to
forgive Kitty," she decided, "and the child will talk about it of
her own accord."


Chapter XXXI.

Mr. Herbert Linley.

Of the friends and neighbors who had associated with Herbert
Linley, in bygone days, not more than two or three kept up their
intimacy with him at the later time of his disgrace. Those few,
it is needless to say, were men.

One of the faithful companions, who had not shrunk from him yet,
had just left the London hotel at which Linley had taken rooms
for Sydney Westerfield and himself--in the name of Mr. and Mrs.
Herbert. This old friend had been shocked by the change for the
worse which he had perceived in the fugitive master of Mount
Morven. Linley's stout figure of former times had fallen away, as
if he had suffered under long illness; his healthy color had
faded; he made an effort to assume the hearty manner that had
once been natural to him which was simply pitiable to see. "After
sacrificing all that makes life truly decent and truly enjoyable
for a woman, he has got nothing, not even false happiness, in
return!" With that dreary conclusion the retiring visitor
descended the hotel steps, and went his way along the street.