The door of No. 17 stood ajar. Francis pushed it open and went into the passage. Three steps brought him to the door of the little room, which was a compound of shop and parlour, with a slight flavour of bedroom. A woman--a girlish creature still, but pale and worn-looking--was sitting in a low nursing chair, with a child of four years old in her arms. Alas for the handiwork of Sorrow, the destroyer! The soft brown hair, the tender hazel eyes, alone remained of the rustic beauty which Francis Tredethlyn remembered smiling at him upon the moorlands of his native county. Ah, how much of his youth came suddenly back upon the Cornishman in that moment of recognition! His mother’s face watching him as he left the dear old homestead in the early summer morning to go to the dame-school; happy haymakings on his father’s farm in the days when haymaking and harvest time were two Arcadian festivals, and not nervous crises in the life of a hardworking farmer, who may or may not be able to pay his rent. His childhood came back to him with all its unconscious happiness, and he fell on his knees by his cousin’s chair in a tumult of emotion. “Susy, my darling, my pet! at last, at last I have found you!” The boy slid from his mother’s arms, frightened by this tumultuous stranger. Susan rose pale and trembling, and shrank away with her hands spread before her face, as if even now she would have hidden herself from her cousin. “Oh, Francis,” she cried, “don’t come near me--don’t look at me! Oh, Heaven have pity on me! I have so prayed that none who ever knew me in my childhood should see me now.” “But, my darling, why, why should you hide yourself from those who love you so fondly?” She made him no direct answer, but covered her face with her hands and sobbed aloud-- “Oh, my shame--my shame! Who will believe me when my father would not?” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XXIX. ENTANGLEMENTS IN THE WEB. Harcourt Lowther, calling at the stuccoed mansion in time for Mrs. Tredethlyn’s afternoon tea, found a dark and dashing young lady comfortably established in a luxurious amber damask nest against a background of amber curtain, whose glowing tints were extremely becoming to the young lady’s clear complexion. The two ladies were quite alone, though Maude declared gaily that she had had crowds of people that afternoon.