Without a word more Mr. Keymer went back to his chair, his face still corrugated with a frown. He was annoyed with himself at having been surprised into a display of temper. Ambrose Lydd watched him keenly while he read the copies, but his features betrayed nothing. When he had come to the end of the second letter, looking Lydd steadily in the face, he said: “Sir, I find that my son is a more egregious ass than I believed him to be. Leave these documents with me, and let me have your address. You shall hear from me in the course of the week.” A few days later Miss Hetty Blair had the satisfaction of opening an account with the Dulminster Banking Company, who placed to her credit a cheque for three hundred guineas which bore the signature of Robert Keymer. CHAPTER XXIII. ETHEL’S CONFESSION It scarcely needs to be stated that Ethel Thursby’s letter to Launce Keymer was written with the full knowledge and sanction of her aunts. When the particulars of her interview with Hetty Blair were told them, they could but hold up their hands in horrified amazement. Their worst fears, never even hinted at to Ethel, had been more than realised; there could no longer be any doubt as to the nature of the motives by which Keymer had been influenced. His treatment of Ethel had been bad enough, but his treatment of Hetty Blair revealed a depth of depravity which caused the gentle hearts of the sisters at once to shiver with affright and glow with thankfulness when they called to mind their darling’s narrow escape from being united for life to such a man. “I little thought I should live to see the day when I could truthfully say, ‘I am glad our money has been taken from us,’” remarked Miss Matilda. “But, here and now, I can say it. To the loss of our money we owe it that Ethel is not by this time Mr. Launce Keymer’s wife. It was one of those blessings in disguise at which we are prone to cavil because we fail at the time to recognise them for what they really are.” “But we ought not to forget what we owe to Miss Blair in the matter,” suggested Miss Jane with that touch of deference due from her as second sister for the time being. “Her revelation would of itself have more than supplied cause enough for breaking off the match.” “Truly so, sister, if it had reached our ears in time; but we have no proof that it would have done so. Had Mr. Keymer not left home, he would probably have found means to defeat her object, and, in addition, would most likely have pressed for the marriage to take place as early as possible.” “In any case, we can never be sufficiently thankful that matters have fallen out as they have. I declare my nerves are all a-tingle at the thought of what Ethel has escaped.” “And I have dropped my stitch six times since she told us—a thing which never happened to me before.”