“I thank God for him also,” said the Doctor. “I kept that cheque for about thirty hours, Ernest, and then, I am glad to say, I sent it back. Had I not have done so I never could have looked Arthur Knight in the face again, and what would have been worse, my nephew would not have respected me more.” “But you never could have done it, Uncle Fred, if it was really wrong,” said Ernest. CHAPTER XXI. A HAPPY EXODUS. “Mother, are you really sure that you can forgive me? It is so good to have a mother, that I feel as if I can never be grateful enough.” “You are fully and freely forgiven, Mary. I have always known that my child’s heart is right—it is her head that is wrong.” Mary Wythburn had found her parents, thanks to Arthur Knight’s assistance, and she was supremely happy. It was wonderful that they had not met before; but there is no place where it is so possible to lose one’s self as London, and they had been within a few miles of each other without once coming into contact. Mary had learnt many salutary lessons during her voluntary absence from her parents. She felt herself more than a year older, though less than that time had elapsed since she disappeared from her home on the day fixed for her marriage. That the marriage had not become an accomplished fact she never regretted; but she would ever feel sorrow and humiliation as she thought of her own cowardice in not facing the situation earlier. But that was all over now, and the new life, with all its vivid interests, was that which of all others she would have chosen. “Mr. Knight will not let me go with his people unless you give your consent,” she said; “and, indeed, I could not myself go without it, for I have never been really happy, knowing that I must be causing you pain and anxiety.” “You never ought to have set yourself up as a teacher of others when you were so failing in your own duty,” her father said; but it was the only stern sentence that fell from his lips. “You shall go with these people,” he added; “and if Mr. Knight will let us come too and help, as far as we are able, in the good work, we will be very glad.” So Mary, who wept first for home and sorrow, afterward cried for joy, and when the party of English folk went away to settle in one of the loveliest parts of the north of mid-Wales, the Wythburns all accompanied them.