‘You remember what you said to me about poor Muriel the day you left Borcel? Well, those words of yours made a deep impression upon me, not so much at the time as afterwards. I thought over all you had said, and it seemed to grow clear to me that there was something sadder about my poor sister’s story than had ever come to my knowledge. She had not been quite fairly used, perhaps. Things had been hushed up and hidden for the honour of her family, and she had been the victim of the family respectability. My mother’s one fault is pride—pride in the respectability of the Trevanards. She doesn’t want to be on a level with her superiors, or to be thought anything better than a yeoman’s wife, but her strong point has been the family credit. “There are no people in Cornwall more looked up to than the Trevanards.” I can remember hearing her say that, as soon as I can remember anything; and I believe she would make any sacrifice of her own happiness to maintain that position. It is just possible that she may have sacrificed the peace of others.’ ‘I agree with you there, Martin. Whatever wrong has been done, great or small, has been done for the sake of the good old name.’ ‘Now it struck me,’ continued Martin, earnestly, ‘that although my mother cannot be persuaded to confide in me, or in my father, who has been a little dull of late, poor soul, she might bring herself to trust you. I know that she respects you, as a clever man, and a man of the world. You live remote from this little corner of the earth where the Trevanards are of importance. She would feel less pain perhaps in trusting you with a family secret than in telling it to her own kith and kin. You would go away carrying the secret with you, and if there were any wrong to be righted, as I fear there must be, you might right it without giving rise to scandal. This is what I have thought—foolishly, perhaps.’ ‘Indeed, no, Martin, I see no folly in your idea; and if I can persuade your mother to trust me, depend upon it I will.’ ‘She knows you are a gentleman, and might be willing to trust in your honour, where she would doubt any commoner person.’ ‘We’ll see what can be done,’ answered Maurice, hopefully. ‘Your poor sister lives apart from you all, I suppose, in the old way?’ ‘Yes,’ replied the young man, ‘and I fear it’s a bad way. Her wits seem further astray than ever. When I meet her now in the hazel copse, where she is so fond of wandering, she looks scared and runs away from me. She sings to herself sometimes of an evening, as she sits by the fire in grandmother’s room. I hear her, now and then, as I pass the window, singing some old song in her sad, sweet voice, just as she used to sing me to sleep years ago. But I think she hardly ever opens her lips to speak.’ ‘Does she ever see her mother?’