Soon after the baby was born, a widowed sister of Lady Kildhurm's--Mrs. Harriet Chepstow by name--came to the Tower and took up her abode there. Mr. Chepstow, deceased, was a younger son of a wealthy family, and had obtained some share of the property; consequently, there is every reason to suppose that the widow did not eat her host's bread without paying him a fair equivalent for it. The subject is a delicate one, but it is necessary that we should touch upon it. There was nothing in the affair to cause Sir Norman any mortification. The widow needed a home, and he needed a few pounds a week; it was a fair exchange. Nevertheless, the Baronet was, in his own way, a very proud man, and it is easily conceivable that he did not enjoy the spectacle of the descendant of his forefathers enacting the _rôle_ of a lodging-house keeper; and that his desire to find the philosopher's stone, or some equivalent for it, should grow more than ever urgent. Lady Kildhurm sympathised with him, and tried, no doubt, to quiet and console him. She liked poverty no better than he did; but she was not rebellious at heart, like him, and still less was she capable of entertaining the unorthodox views as to moral responsibility which have been above alluded to. Sir Norman felt this, and had the good sense, or the precaution, never to attempt to argue such hazardous questions with her. A man must become a very bad man indeed who does not like to see his wife more honourable and more virtuous than he is himself. Let it not be inferred from this remark that Sir Norman had contemplated any definite criminal act. All that he had done thus far--and thousands of guiltless men have done as much--was to ask himself whether circumstances might not make some wrongs more justifiable than certain rights. At that point, or very little beyond it, he paused: circumstance and opportunity might carry the matter further, or might let it stand where it was. There was no telling. CHAPTER VIII. A HATFUL OF DIAMONDS.