The paying of the money had been a surprise to Mr. Tiplady, knowing, as he did, Philip's penniless state. Without saying a word to her husband, Maria had gone to Mr. Tiplady, and had made over to him the twelve hundred pounds which, long before, he had agreed with Lady Cleeve should be the amount of premium to be paid him in consideration of taking Philip into partnership. How gratifying to Philip it was to know that his mother was never to hear the truth of his folly; that she was to be left in the belief that the money she had made him a loving present of on his birthday, had all gone in the silver mine! In her fond eyes Philip always remained the most peerless of sons. What a weight was lifted off the young man's heart by this generous act of his wife! From that day forward his health improved rapidly; he grew again like the merry, light-hearted Philip Cleeve of old times, his laugh a pleasure to hear. But the lesson taught him was not one to be readily forgotten. And there would be one sweet presence ever by his side to see that his footsteps did not falter, and to cheer him onward whenever the road before him seemed hard and difficult to travel. Philip Cleeve had learnt his life's lesson. In truth, he had been more lucky than he deserved, and he was to be more so yet. Apart from his past follies, the one item of remembrance that made him wince was the thought that his wife should have sacrificed a great portion of her little fortune to patch up his. Even this bitterness was to be taken from him. Just at this time his brother, Sir Gunton Cleeve, was despatched to England on some mission by the embassy to which he was attached; and he snatched an opportunity to run down to Homedale for four-and-twenty hours. To him Philip made a clean breast of the past, confessing everything: the card-playing, the billiard-playing, the personal extravagance in the shape of petty ornaments and the like; and the voracious silver mine that had quite finished him. "Why, what a silly young fellow you must have been!" exclaimed the baronet. "I know it, Gunton, to my cost. I shall know it all my days." Sir Gunton had sown a few wild oats during his youth, though he had long ago steadied down, and he was not inclined to be too severe. "What I don't like, Philip, is this, that your wife should have had to pay the premium to Tiplady. It looks mean--for us. What does the mother say?--and the Vicar?" "The Vicar has said nothing to me: I don't think he intends to blow me up; he has been very good, I must confess. All he said to Maria was, that the money was her own and he could not interfere. As to the mother, Gunton, she knows nothing of my wicked folly; she thinks the twelve hundred pounds was all swallowed up by the mine. Maria went to Tiplady, and paid over the money without saying a word to anybody."