‘Let the dead bury their dead,’ said Hammond.  ’Neither you nor your sisters can be the worse for this ancient slander.  No doubt every part of the story has been distorted and exaggerated in the telling; and a great deal of it may be pure invention, evolved from the inner consciousness of the slanderer.  God forbid that any whisper of scandal should ever reach Lady Lesbia’s ears.’

He ignored poor Mary.  It was to him as if there were no such person.  Her feeble light was extinguished by the radiance of her sister’s beauty; her very individuality was annihilated.

‘As for you, dear old fellow,’ he said, with warm affection, ’no one will ever think the worse of you on account of your grandfather’s peccadilloes.’

’Yes, they will.  Hereditary genius is one of our modern crazes.  When a man’s grandfather was a rogue, there must be a taint in his blood.  People don’t believe in spontaneous generation, moral or physical, now-a-days.  Typhoid breeds typhoid, and typhus breeds typhus, just as dog breeds dog; and who will believe that a cheat and a liar can be the father of honest men?’

’In that case, knowing what kind of man the grandson is, I will never believe that the grandfather was a rogue,’ said Hammond, heartily.

Maulevrier put out his hand without a word, and it was warmly grasped by his friend.

’As for her ladyship, I respect and honour her as a woman who has led a life of self-sacrifice, and has worn her pride as an armour,’ continued Hammond.

‘Yes, I believe the dowager’s character is rather fine,’ said Maulevrier; ’but she and I have never hit our horses very well together.  She would have liked such a fellow as you for a grandson, Jack—­a man who took high honours at Oxford, and could hold his own against all comers.  Such a grandson would have gratified her pride, and would have repaid her for the trouble she had taken in nursing the Maulevrier estate; for however poor a property it was when her husband went to India there is no doubt that it is a very fine estate now, and that the dowager has been the making of it.’

The two young men strolled up to Easedale Tarn before they went back to Fellside, where Lady Maulevrier received them with a stately graciousness, and where Lady Lesbia unbent considerably at luncheon, and condescended to an animated conversation with her brother’s friend.  It was such a new thing to have a stranger at the family board, a man whose information was well abreast with the march of progress, who could talk eloquently upon every subject which people care to talk about.  In this new and animated society Lesbia seemed like an enchanted princess suddenly awakened from a spell-bound slumber.  Molly looked at her sister with absolute astonishment.  Never had she seen her so bright, so beautiful—­no longer a picture or a statue, but a woman warm with the glow of life.

‘No wonder Mr. Hammond admires her,’ thought poor Molly, who was quite acute enough to see the stranger’s keen appreciation of her sister’s charms, and positive indifference towards herself.