'It is indeed dreadful. But still--consider--no scandal. Mother, I think we should find out, if we can, something about his private life--how he has been living. He has been out a good deal of evenings lately. If there is any--any person--on whom he has been tempted to spend money--if he has been gambling--or betting, or any of the things that I read of'--this young lady, thanks to the beneficent assistance of certain works of fiction, was tolerably acquainted with the ways of young men and their temptations--'it would be a satisfaction to know it at least.' The ladies of a family where there is a 'wild' young man do not generally find it easy to get at the facts of his wildness: these remain locked up in the bosoms of his companions. No details could be learned about any wildness--quite the contrary. He seemed, so far as could be learned, to have led a very quiet and regular life. 'But then,' said the philosopher of eighteen, quoting from a novel, 'men shelter each other. They are all bad together.' But--no scandal. Everybody knows that kind of brother or sister by whom all family events are considered with a view to the scandal likely to be caused and the personal injury resulting to himself; or the envy that will follow and the personal advantage accruing from that event. That her brother was perhaps a shameful criminal might be considered by Hilda Arundel later on: at first, she was only capable of perceiving that this horrid fact, unless it could be hidden away and kept secret, might very materially injure herself. Almost naturally, she folded her hands sweetly and laid her comely head a little on one side--it is an attitude of resignation which may be observed in certain pictures of saints and holy women. Hilda knew many little attitudes. Also, quite naturally, she glanced at a mirror on the wall and observed that her pose was one of sorrow borne with Christian resignation. We must blame neither Hilda nor her mother. The case as put by Mr. Dering in the form of plain fact without any comment, did seem very black indeed against Athelstan. In every family the first feeling in such a case--it is the instinct of self-preservation--is to hush up the thing if possible--to avoid a scandal.