"My dear Phil, you don't in the least know what you are asking me to do," broke in Mrs. Winslade, her fingers returning her son's pressure. "If I have hitherto kept this thing from you, and if I still continue to do so, I must ask you to believe that the motives by which I have been and am still actuated are such as I am fully able to justify to my own conscience. Trust me, you are happier, far happier, in your ignorance than you could hope to be if I made you as sadly wise as myself." "But, mother----" "Is another word needed, Phil?" asked Mrs. Winslade gently; but that very gentleness, as the young man was well aware, veiled a firmness not to be shaken. "Scarcely so, I think--unless it be this: that I only know of one contingency which would induce me to break the rule of silence I have hitherto imposed on myself with regard to a certain matter." "May I ask to be enlightened as to the nature of the contingency of which you speak?" "You may ask, my dear boy, but you must pardon me if I decline to satisfy your curiosity. Be content to rest in ignorance. Believe me, it is better so." CHAPTER II WHO IS MRS. WINSLADE? Although the Vicar of St. Michael's, in the exuberance of his good nature, had allowed Philip Winslade to infer that there was no reason why Mrs. Sudlow might not be expected to look upon the young man's suit with eyes as favourable as those with which he himself was inclined to regard it, he felt far from sure in his own mind that such would really be the case. He knew that his wife was a woman of strong prejudices and narrow sympathies, who had a habit of nourishing petty resentments till they swelled out of all proportion to the original cause of offence, whether it chanced to be real or merely supposititious. For his own part, he would have gladly welcomed Phil for a son-in-law. He--the Rev. Louth--was, comparatively speaking, a poor man. There seemed little prospect of any further preferment for him; he had eight younger olive-branches to provide for, who were growing more expensive year by year; and to be able to get his eldest daughter off his hands, and married to one who he felt sure would make her a good husband, seemed to him one of those things devoutly to be wished. He was not a man of strong will, nor even one of those who contrive to mask their moral cowardice under the bluster of self-assertion. Dear to his heart were peace and quietness, more especially on the domestic hearth. As he rang the vicarage bell this evening his courage sank a little at the prospect before him. His conscience was too sensitive to allow him to shirk what he deemed to be a duty, how disagreeable soever it might be to him; but that did not render its discharge any the easier. Dinner came as a brief respite. It was not till later, after the younger members of the family had retired for the night and husband and wife were left alone in the drawing-room, that the Vicar braced himself to the task before him.