“Rees has been telling his mother a parcel of falsehoods, that’s all. Do you think an idle, self-indulgent young scamp like that would get a salary large enough for him to spare two pounds a week? Do lawyers send their clerks scudding about all over the country like bagmen? No, Miss Audaer, our young friend is amusing himself, and doesn’t want his mother to come up to interrupt his pleasures.” “But he has no money!” said Deborah, whose face expressed the strength of her feelings. “How do you know? He manages to have the things that money gets, I happen to know, for not six weeks ago I saw him at Goodwood, perfectly dressed and perfectly mounted. Now, those are things which people can only do when they have either money or credit. The little beggar had the audacity to cut me, not that I bear him any malice for that,” he added, good humoredly. Poor Deborah was greatly troubled. “He is so weak, so dreadfully weak; he must have got into bad hands,” she said, in a quavering voice. “And yet, what can one do? Mamma will not go up to see him, because from the tone of his letters she can see he does not want her to. And she believes, or tries to believe, his constant promise of coming down to see us.” “Well, if you wait for that, you will have to wait until the young scapegrace has got to the end of his tether,” said the earl, with a short laugh. “But what am I to do? Mamma will believe nothing; indeed, I could scarcely wish her to. In the meantime----” “In the meantime the lad may go one step too far, and the next news you have of him may be--through the newspapers.” Deborah drew her breath with a sob. These suggestions were only an echo to the fears which had lately been haunting her. “I’ll tell you what you could do,” the earl went on, in a kindly, sympathetic voice. “You might discover an excuse for wanting to go to London; I am going up myself in a day or two, and you would be very welcome to my services as an escort, since I don’t suppose they would let you travel alone. Then I would help you to find him out, and if he’s got into some scrape, we’d do our best together to help him out again.” “Thank you,” said Deborah, “I’ll think about it.” The earl was delighted, thinking he had advanced a step. But the girl had the discretion which natural modesty imparts, and though she did give his proposition a second thought, it was with a slight alteration which he had not contemplated. The result of her reflections was that she put it into Mrs. Pennant’s head that Rees might be ill, and that the best thing they could do was to go up and see him without too long a notice of their intention.