“He shall if I can make him,” said Harold.

“And Harold, my dear,” said Mrs. Alison, with her hand on his shoulder, as he knelt by his box, “you’ll go to see your own poor mamma?”

Harold started and winced.  “My mother is in New Zealand,” he said.

“Yes, my dear,” said the old lady triumphantly; “but that’s only the other side of the way, for I looked in Lucy’s map.”

“And she has a husband,” added Harold between his teeth, ignoring what the other side of the way might mean.

“Yes, my dear, I know he is not a nice man, but you are her only one, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And I know what that is—­not that I ever married anyone but your poor uncle, nor ever would, not if the new rector had asked me, which many expected and even paid their compliments to me on, but I always said ‘No, no.’  But you’ll go and see her, my dear, and comfort her poor heart, which, you may depend, is longing and craving after you, my dear; and all the more if her new gentleman isn’t quite as he should be.”

Harold could not persuade himself to bring out any answer but “I’ll see about it;” and when we were alone, he said with a sigh, “If I should be any comfort to her poor heart.”

“I should think there was no doubt of that.”

“I am afraid of committing murder,” answered Harold, almost under his breath, over the trunk.

“Oh, Harold!  Not now.”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“You have not seen him for ten years.  He may be altered as much as you.”

“And for the worse.  I could almost say I dare not.”

“There’s nothing you don’t dare, God helping you,” I said.

“I shall think.  If it is my duty, I suppose God will help me.  Hitherto, I have thought my rage against the brutes made it worse for her, and that I do best for her by keeping out of the way.”

“I think they would respect you now too much to do anything very bad before you.”

“She would fare the worse for it afterwards.”

“I am of Mrs. Alison’s opinion, that she would be willing for the sake of seeing her son, and such a son.”

Harold sighed.

“But it could not have been so dreadful when Eustace lived with them, and was so fond of the man.”

“He nattered Eustace to curry favour with him and his father.  He has sunk much lower.  Then he lived like a decent clergyman.  He has thrown all that off in New Zealand, and fallen entirely under the dominion of that son.  I could wish I had quite throttled that Dick when I so nearly did so at school.”

“If you say such things, I shall think you ought not to trust yourself there.”

“That is it—­I am afraid.  I have crimes enough already.”