She gave the advice in all good faith, and without a thought of the great moral wrong she was committing. The supreme selfishness of her motherly idolatry blinded her to the cruel injustice she was meting out to the innocent girl whose heritage she coveted for her son. Yet she counted herself a Christian woman, and would have had nothing but indignant scorn for the individual who might presume to question her right to such a title. This is no solitary or exceptional case. Such things are done daily, and religion is made the cloak to cover a multitude of sins. Mrs. Fordyce had so long striven to serve both God and Mammon that she had lost the fine faculty which can discern the dividing line. In other words, her conscience was dead, and allowed her to give this deplorable advice without a dissenting word. 'It would be deuced awkward,' said the amiable George, 'if anything were to come out after.' 'After marriage, you mean? Oh, there would be a scene, a few hysterics perhaps, and there the matter would be at an end. A wife can't afford to be so punctilious as a maiden fancy free. She has herself too much to lose.' George accepted the maternal advice, and went out to Mauchline after business hours that very day. [Illustration] CHAPTER XLI. A GREAT RELIEF. Next afternoon Gladys herself drove the lawyer and his wife from Bourhill to the station. 'Now, my dear,' said Mrs. Fordyce, as they were about to part, 'I shall allow the girls to come down on Saturday, on condition that you return with them at the end of a week, prepared to accompany us to London.' Gladys nodded, with a bright smile. 'Yes, I shall do everything you wish. I believe I am rather tired of having my own way, and I should not mind having a change, even from Bourhill.' As they stood lingering a little over their good-byes, a train from Glasgow came puffing into the station, and, with a sudden gleam of expectation, Mrs. Fordyce glanced anxiously at the alighting passengers. 'My dear, why, there is George! actually George himself.' Gladys cast a startled glance in the direction indicated and the colour mounted high to her brow, then faded quite, leaving her rather strikingly pale. 'Why does he come here?' she asked quickly, 'I have not asked him.' 'Unless you have broken off your engagement with him, Gladys, he has a right to come whether you ask him or not. Tom dear, here is our train now, and we must run over that bridge. We dare not miss it, I suppose?' 'I daren't, seeing I have to take the chair at a dinner in the Windsor Hotel to-night,' replied the lawyer; 'but if you like to remain a little longer, why not, Isabel?' Mrs. Fordyce hesitated a moment. Her nephew was giving up his ticket to the collector at the little gate, and their train was impatiently snorting at the opposite platform. 'I had better go,' she decided quickly, as her husband began to run off. Turning to Gladys, she gave her a hasty kiss, and observed seriously,--