The mother’s face flushed angrily, and she rose and threw her head back with the haughty defiance peculiar to her family.

“Edna Earl, how dare you speak to me in such terms of my own son?  There is not a woman on the face of the broad earth who ought not to feel honored by his preference—­who might not be proud of his hand.  What right have you to pronounce him unworthy of trust?  Answer me!”

“The right to judge him from his own account of his past life.  The history which he gave me condemns him.  His crimes make me shrink from him.”

“Crimes? take care, Edna!  You must be beside yourself!  My son is no criminal!  He was unfortunate and rash, but his impetuosity was certainly pardonable under the circumstances.”

“All things are susceptible of palliation in a mother’s partial eyes,” answered the governess.

“St. Elmo fought a duel, and afterward carried on several flirtations with women who were weak enough to allow themselves to be trifled with; moreover, I shall not deny that at one period of his life he was lamentably dissipated; but all that happened long ago, before you knew him.  How many young gentlemen indulge in the same things, and are never even reprimanded by society, much less denounced as criminals?  The world sanctions duelling and flirting, and you have no right to set your extremely rigid notions of propriety above the verdict of modern society.  Custom justifies many things which you seem to hold in utter abhorrence.  Take care that you do not find yourself playing the Pharisee on the street corners.”

Mrs. Murray walked up and down the room twice, then came to the hearth.

“Well, Edna, I am waiting to hear you.”

“There is nothing that I can say which would not wound or displease you; therefore, dear Mrs. Murray, I must be silent.”

“Retract the hasty words you uttered just now; they express more than you intended.”

“I cannot!  I mean all I said.  Offences against God’s law, which you consider pardonable—­and which the world winks at and permits, and even defends—­I regard as grievous sins.  I believe that every man who kills another in a duel deserves the curse of Cain, and should be shunned as a murderer.  My conscience assures me that a man who can deliberately seek to gain a woman’s heart merely to gratify his vanity, or to wreak his hate by holding her up to scorn, or trifling with the love which he has won, is unprincipled, and should be ostracized by every true woman.  Were you the mother of Murray and Annie Hammond, do you think you could so easily forgive this murderer?”

“Their father forgives and trusts my son, and you have no right to sit in judgment upon him.  Do you suppose that you are holier than that white-haired saint whose crown of glory is waiting for him in heaven??  Are you so much purer than Allan Hammond that you fear contamination from one to whom he clings?”

“No—­no—­no!  You wrong me!  If you could know how humble is my estimate of myself, you would not taunt me so cruelly; you would only—­pity me!”