‘With reason,’ returned Ulick, ’but I was thinking how it must break his heart to have pained such as they.’

‘I wish he would feel it thus,’ exclaimed Sophy; ‘but he never will!’

‘Oh! banish that notion, Sophy,’ cried Ulick, recoiling at the indignation in her dark eyes, ’next to grieving my mother, I declare nothing could crush me like meeting a look such as that from a sister of mine.’

‘How can I help it?’ she said, reserve breaking down in her vehemence, ’when I think how much papa has suffered—­how much Gilbert has to make up to him—­how mamma took him for her own—­how they have borne with him, and set their happiness on him, and yielded to his fancies, only for him to disappoint them so cruelly, and just because he can’t say No!  I hope he wont come home; I shall never know how to speak to him !’

‘But all that makes it so much the worse for him,’ said Ulick, in a tone of amazement.

‘Yes, you can’t understand,’ she answered; ’if he had had one spark of feeling like you, he would rather have died than have gone on as he has done.’

’Surely many a man may be overtaken in a fault, and never be wrong at heart,’ said Ulick.  ’There’s many a worse sin than what the world sets a blot upon, and I believe that is just why homes were made.’

Lucy came back with the frock, and Ulick, thanking her, sped away; while Sophy slowly went upstairs and hid herself on her couch.  For a woman to find a man thinking her over-hard and severe, is sure either to harden or to soften her very decidedly, and it was a hard struggle which would be the effect.  There was an inclination at first to attribute his surprise to the lax notions and foolish fondness of his home, where no doubt far worse disorders than Gilbert’s were treated as mere matters of course.  But such strong pity for the offender did not seem to accord with this; and the more she thought, the more sure she became that it was the fresh charity and sweetness of an innocent spirit, ‘believing all things,’ and separating the fault from the offender.  His words had fallen on her ear in a sense beyond what he meant.  Pride and uncharitable resentment might be worse sins than mere weakness and excess.  She thought of the elder son in the parable, who, unknowing of his brother’s temptation and sorrow, closed his heart against his return; and if her tears would have come, she would have wept that she could not bring herself to look on Gilbert otherwise than as the troubler of her father’s peace.

When her mother at last came upstairs, she only ventured to ask gently, ‘How does papa bear it?’

‘It did not come without preparation,’ was the answer; ’and at first we were occupied with comforting Mr. Dusautoy, who takes to himself all the shame his nephew will not feel, for having drawn poor Gilbert into such a set.’

‘And papa?’ still asked Sophy.

’He is very quiet, and it is not easy to tell.  I believe it was a great mistake, though not of his making, to send Gilbert to Oxford at all, and I doubt whether he will ever go back again.