“The same that you have here.”

The countess-dowager beamed.  In the midst of her happiness—­and it was what she had not felt for many a long day, for really the poor old creature had been put about sadly—­she bethought herself of propriety.  Melting into tears, she presently bewailed her exhaustion, and said she should like some tea:  perhaps good Mr. Carr would bring her a teaspoonful of brandy to put into it.

They brought her hot tea, and Mr. Carr put the brandy into it, and Anne took it to her on the sofa, and administered it, her own tears overflowing.  She was thinking what an awful blow this would have been to her own mother.

“Little Maude shall be very dear to me always, Val,” she whispered.  “This knowledge will make me doubly tender with her.”

He laid his hand fondly upon her, giving her one of his sweet sad smiles in answer.  She could at length understand what feelings, in regard to the children, had actuated him.  But from henceforth he would be just to all alike; and Maude would receive her share of correction for her own good.

“I always said you did not give me back the letter,” observed Mr. Carr, when they were alone together later, and Val sat tearing up the letter into innumerable bits.

“And I said I did, simply because I could not find it.  You were right, Carr, as you always are.”

“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 assented 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 God will bring thee into judgment.’”