Susan consented to let her cousin do what he liked with regard to the place in which she was to live henceforward. What mother could refuse a bright home for the child she loves? A few words from Francis conjured up the vision of a garden, where the boy could play under the shadow of lilacs and laburnums; where the summer breeze would waft the petals of overblown roses around that golden head. From the happy moment in which he urged the child’s welfare as an argument against the mother, Francis Tredethlyn’s triumph was secured. Susan pondered. She thought of the sweet country air, the bright rooms, with the fresh breath of morning blowing in at the open windows, the garden, the cow, the chickens, and all the joys of that sweet rustic paradise which town-bred children hear of from their mother’s lips, and see only in their dreams. Susan hesitated. Francis had made friends with the boy by this time, and had enlisted the child on his side of the argument. When the woman’s sorrowful pride began to hold out weakly, when the mother’s heart showed symptoms of relenting, the child’s little chubby arms crept round her neck, and the child’s tiny voice pleaded in her ear: “Peese, mammy, do live in the pooty house, and let Wobert have pooty flowers.” It was the triumph of infantine oratory. Susan turned to her kinsman, half laughing, half crying, and gave him her hand. “You must do as you like, cousin Frank,” she said. “Whatever is best for Robert must be best for me.” Thus it was that Francis Tredethlyn had withdrawn himself in a great measure from the society of Mr. Lowther, while he scoured the prettiest suburbs in search of a home for his cousin, and superintended the necessary improvements and decoration, the selection of the simple furniture, the arrangement of a garden, in which Robert Lesley’s son might play happily, his life undarkened by the baseness of an unknown father. There had been unspeakable pleasure for the Cornishman in the doing of this work. It was so long since he had been of use to any one; it was so long since his supremest benevolence to his fellow-men had taken any higher form than the payment of a dinner-bill, and a handsome bonus to the waiter. He seemed to breathe a new atmosphere, a fresher, purer air, when he shook himself clear of Harcourt Lowther’s society, and spent a summer’s day pottering amongst carpenters and house-painters in the Petersham cottage. The odour of turpentine and lead did not give him a headache; it was almost invigorating after the stifling fumes of musk and mock-turtle, patchouli, and devilled whitebait that had pervaded the hotel dining-rooms in which he had so often acted as host. Energetic though Mr. Tredethlyn was in the carrying out of his arrangements, Susan had been established little more than a week at the cottage, and the paint on the Venetian shutters was still rather sticky, when Harcourt Lowther found the upholsterer’s bill, which gave him the clue to his pupil’s mysterious conduct.