“I took her away yesterday,” Jasper Penny replied negligently.  “We went to the Circus, and at present she is at Miss Brandon’s Academy.”  He was surprised by the sudden concern on his cousin’s handsome, florid countenance.  “By heaven, Jasper,” the lawyer exclaimed, “am I to understand that you took a—­well, an illegitimate child, to Miss Brundon, left her in the School?  It’s—­it’s incredible.”

“Why not?”

“If such a thing were known it would ruin Susan Brundon over night.  Haven’t you a conception of how this is regarded?  She would be stripped of pupils as if the place reeked of malignant fever.  A most beastly egotistical and selfish act.”

“Never thought of that,” Jasper Penny admitted.  He saw again the fine, sensitive face of Miss Brundon, presiding over the establishment that was like an emanation of her diffident and courageous spirit; the last person alive he would harm.  And people were exactly as Stephen had said, particularly women.  They would destroy Susan Brundon ruthlessly, without a moment’s hesitation.  He thought of her as suffering incalculably, betrayed by his implied lie; he saw her eyes stricken with pain, her hands twisting together....  He rose sharply.

“A blind, infernal fool!” he ejaculated, grasping his hat.  “I’m glad I saw you when I did.  Put it right at once.  Obliged, Stephen; come to you later about changing my will and the rest.”

He was in such haste to remove the danger of Eunice from Susan Brundon that not until he again stood at the door of the Academy did he realize what a difficult explanation lay before him.  Unconsciously he had reached a point where he would do his utmost to avoid hurting her.  Already she occupied an unusual elevation in his thoughts, an unworldly plane bathed in a white radiance.

She was not in the office, but soon appeared, with a questioning gaze; and, he felt, an appealing lessening of her reserve.  He hesitated, casting vainly about for an acceptable expression of his errand.  Another lie, he thought, acutely distressed, must be necessary.  “I am extremely sorry, Miss Brandon,” he told her, “but unexpected developments in the last hour make it necessary for me to remove Eunice from your school.”

A slow flush invaded her countenance lifted to meet his troubled gaze.  “Mr. Penny!” she exclaimed, in a faint dismay.  “Oh, I hope it is because of nothing—­nothing derogatory you have heard.  Please tell me directly—­”

“Absolutely no,” he replied, his voice carrying a vibrating reassurance.  “You are entirely without the need of recommendation, far beyond any unfavourable report.  I am profoundly disturbed by causing you inconvenience, and I only hope to offer you sufficient apology; but I shall have to take Eunice away with me, at once.”

“Perhaps her mother can’t bear separation.”