"Her conscience can give the poor thing no peace, I should think." Again Mrs. Lisle shook her head sadly. "You mustn't think hardly of Bernadette, mother. It--it wasn't altogether her fault that she and Godfrey didn't hit it off. He knows that, I think, himself. I'm sure he'd say so. She had her difficulties and--er--trials." "Most married women have, my dear, but that's no reason for deserting their husbands and children, and committing the sin that she has committed--and is committing." "If this unhappy person----" Ronald began. Arthur might stand it from his mother; he could not from Ronald Slingsby. "If you've nothing pleasant to call people, Slingsby, you might just call them by their names. Bernadette has been a dear good friend to me, and I don't like the phrase you choose to describe her. And I must say, mother, that if you knew the circumstances as well as I do, you'd be more charitable." "I'm as sorry--as bitterly sorry--as I can be, dear, but----" "It's more a question of justice than of sorrow." "Well, how have we been unjust, Arthur?" This question of Anna's was plainly hostile. "You don't allow for circumstances and--and temptations, and----" He broke off impatiently. "It's really not much good trying to explain." "I'm inclined to be sorry I ever persuaded you to make their acquaintance," sighed Mrs. Lisle. Anna's hostility and Ronald Slingsby's prim commiseration annoyed Arthur exceedingly. His mother's attitude towards him touched him more deeply, and to a half-amused yet sincere remorse. It grew more marked with every day of his visit. She showed an affectionate but rather reproachful anxiety about him--about his life, his doings, and his ways of thought. She seemed to fear--indeed she hinted--that his association with the Lisles (which meant, of course, with Bernadette, and for which she persisted in shouldering a responsibility not really belonging to her) might have sapped his morals and induced a laxity in his principles and perhaps--if only she knew all--in his conduct. She evinced a gentle yet persistent curiosity about his work, about his companions and his pursuits in London. She abounded in references to the hopes and anxieties entertained about him by his father; she would add that she knew, understood, and allowed for the temptations of young men; there was the more need to seek strength where alone strength could be found.