“I know everything,” she said. “I know that you are in hideous danger, and if you run away from it it is indeed all over with you. You must face it; you must defy it!” As though in her last words she had touched and given form and life to the very core of the determination which had nerved her since she had first read Julian’s letter that morning, her voice rose as she spoke them into a ring of indomitable courage, vibrating with the very triumph of that defiance of which she spoke. Her slight, haggard physique seemed to expand, to gain in dignity and power; as the whole room seemed to fill with the magnetism of her intense resolution. There was an instant’s pause, and then an exclamation broke alike from Julian and from Falconer. Julian’s was almost derisive in its absolute repudiation of her words; Falconer’s was sternly incredulous. Clemence was standing a little apart. No sound came from her, but she lifted her face suddenly and turned it towards Mrs. Romayne. A vague horror and confusion had dawned in her eyes. Before the annihilating words with which Falconer obviously intended to follow up his first ejaculation could be uttered, Mrs. Romayne was speaking again--in a rapid, businesslike tone now, but always with that ring of triumph behind it. “You must come back with me to-night and take up your position as if nothing could shake it. You must fight for your credit and your social status tooth and nail. When you have lost them you have lost everything! You have not lost them yet, and no risk is too great to run for their retention.” “Not penal servitude?” asked Julian, with a ghastly smile. “Not penal servitude, not hanging--if that were the risk,” returned his mother passionately. “What are you better off if you escape--disgraced, ostracised, ruined beyond all hope of reclamation--than you would be in a convict’s cell? What would you have to live for--to hope for? When you have lost your position with the world you have lost everything. What does it matter that you go down in one wave rather than another?” She paused a moment, battling with her fierce horror and repulsion. Then she went on again in another tone, eager and decided. “But the risk is not so frightful after all,” she said. “Show it a bold front and we shall triumph over it! Now, listen to me, Julian. This other man--this man Ramsay--was the actual forger?” She paused for an answer, and apparently the insistence of her tone forced one from Julian in spite of himself. “As far as the actual commission of the forgery goes--yes,” he said sullenly. “But----” “Then what is there to prove--to prove, mind--that you were a party to it?” Julian glanced round at Clemence as if involuntarily. Then he looked recklessly back at his mother and laughed harshly. “The facts----” he began. His mother caught up the words.