Ernest could never stand being spoken to in this way by his mother:  for he still believed that she loved him, and that he was fond of her and had a friend in her—­up to a certain point.  But his mother was beginning to come to the end of her tether; she had played the domestic confidence trick upon him times without number already.  Over and over again had she wheedled from him all she wanted to know, and afterwards got him into the most horrible scrape by telling the whole to Theobald.  Ernest had remonstrated more than once upon these occasions, and had pointed out to his mother how disastrous to him his confidences had been, but Christina had always joined issue with him and showed him in the clearest possible manner that in each case she had been right, and that he could not reasonably complain.  Generally it was her conscience that forbade her to be silent, and against this there was no appeal, for we are all bound to follow the dictates of our conscience.  Ernest used to have to recite a hymn about conscience.  It was to the effect that if you did not pay attention to its voice it would soon leave off speaking.  “My mamma’s conscience has not left off speaking,” said Ernest to one of his chums at Roughborough; “it’s always jabbering.”

When a boy has once spoken so disrespectfully as this about his mother’s conscience it is practically all over between him and her.  Ernest through sheer force of habit, of the sofa, and of the return of the associated ideas, was still so moved by the siren’s voice as to yearn to sail towards her, and fling himself into her arms, but it would not do; there were other associated ideas that returned also, and the mangled bones of too many murdered confessions were lying whitening round the skirts of his mother’s dress, to allow him by any possibility to trust her further.  So he hung his head and looked sheepish, but kept his own counsel.

“I see, my dearest,” continued his mother, “either that I am mistaken, and that there is nothing on your mind, or that you will not unburden yourself to me:  but oh, Ernest, tell me at least this much; is there nothing that you repent of, nothing which makes you unhappy in connection with that miserable girl Ellen?”

Ernest’s heart failed him.  “I am a dead boy now,” he said to himself.  He had not the faintest conception what his mother was driving at, and thought she suspected about the watch; but he held his ground.

I do not believe he was much more of a coward than his neighbours, only he did not know that all sensible people are cowards when they are off their beat, or when they think they are going to be roughly handled.  I believe, that if the truth were known, it would be found that even the valiant St Michael himself tried hard to shirk his famous combat with the dragon; he pretended not to see all sorts of misconduct on the dragon’s part; shut his eyes to the eating up of I do not know how many hundreds of men, women