But what could she say? She said nothing; not even to Beaufort could she disclose that miserable insight which had come to her. Your own children, how can you blame them to another, even if that other is your husband? how say that, though so near in blood and every tie, they are alien in soul? how disclose that sad intuition? Carry never said a word. She shook her head; not even perhaps to their own father could she have revealed that discovery. A mother’s part is to excuse, to pardon, to bear with everything, even to pretend that she is deceived and blinded by the partiality of love, never to disclose the profound and unutterable discouragement with which she has recognised the truth. She shook her head at Beaufort’s arguments, leaving him to believe that it was only a woman’s natural severity of judgment against the sins with which she had no sympathy. And by-and-by she allowed herself to be comforted. He thought that he had brought her back to good sense and the moderation of a less exacting standard, and had convinced her that a boyish escapade, however blamable, was not of the importance she imagined. He thought he had persuaded her not to be hard upon Tom, not to reproach him, to pass it over as a thing which might be trusted to his good sense not to occur again. Carry did not enter into any explanations. She had by this time come to understand well enough that she must not expect anyone to divine what was in her heart. Meanwhile Janet, who was vaguely informed on the matter, and knew that Tom was in disgrace, though not very clearly why, threw herself into his defence with all the fervour that was in her nature. She went and sat by him while he lingered over a late breakfast with all the ruefulness of headache. ‘Oh, Tom, what have you done?’ she said. ‘Oh, why didn’t you come in time for dinner? Oh, where were you all the afternoon? We were looking for you everywhere, Jock and I.’ Jock was an Erskine cousin, the eldest of the tribe. ‘What does it matter to you where I was?’ said the sullen boy. ‘Tom! everything about you matters to me,’ said Janet, ‘and for one thing we couldn’t make up our game.’ ‘Oh, that humbugging game. Do you think I’m a baby or a girl? I hate your tennis. It isn’t a game for a man.’ ‘Quantities and quantities of gentlemen play. Beau plays. Why, the officers play,’ cried Janet, feeling that nothing more was to be said. Tom could not refuse to acknowledge such authority. ‘Well, then, it isn’t a game for me, playing with girls and children. A gallop across country, that’s what I like, and to see all father’s old friends, and to hear what they thought of him. By Jove, Janet, father was a man! not one to lounge about in a drawing-room like old Beau;’ here the boy’s heart misgave him a little. ‘Beau’s kind enough,’ he said; ‘he doesn’t look at a fellow as if--as if you had murdered somebody. But if father had lived----’