On account of gaieties which she did not like to miss, Mrs. Keith remained imprudently long in the south, and then she was met by the great temptation of her life; the fiery testing of will and principle which comes sooner or later to most, though with some it is spread, diluted, through many years, with others is concentrated into one tremendous pull. It came, as such trials often do, just so shaped as to make a fall easy. Cecil Keith had not trained herself to be habitually true in word and deed, neither was she a woman of high integrity. James Randolph had not discovered this. Giles, always sensitive to heat, failed in health, and was ordered to a cooler climate. Mrs. Keith started, travelling by easy stages for the sake of the little invalid; and when a day or two later the nurse fell ill, she was left behind. Mrs. Keith, feverishly anxious, would wait for nothing, but hurried on—perhaps too fast, for Giles grew worse. When two more stages had been accomplished, he sank so rapidly that she summoned a local German doctor, who told her all hope was at an end—Giles was dying. He promised to call again in an hour or two; and she sat beside the bed, watching the small changed face, realising what this meant to herself. Giles dying, and the responsibility hers! For her own pleasure she had stayed in the south, when she ought to have gone north; and though it might be called only an error in judgment, she would be blamed. Worse still—if Giles died, her income ceased. While he lived, she was comfortably off, and if he should grow to manhood, she might expect not to be left in the lurch. But his death meant the stoppage of her income. The estate would pass to a distant relative, and Mr. Penrhyn would be powerless. She shrank with bitter dread from the thought of grinding poverty, and then came the temptation. At first a mere suggestion, almost formless, but it grew into shape. Why not transpose the boys' names? Why not put Colin for Giles, and Giles for Colin? If the little one recovered, the names could be reversed. If die he must, why should not her boy, as Giles, enjoy the wealth which otherwise must pass to strangers? It would mean ease for herself and him. And it need not be for always. Some day she would put things right—would slip out of it. She did not pause to consider how this might be possible. The change looked simple. No one here knew her or the boys. Their nurse she could get rid of, sending a month's wages by post and dismissing her. Except Mr. Penrhyn and Mr. Dugdale, nobody from home had seen the children, and they not for months. Little ones alter so much in the first year or two that the exchange would never be detected. And if Giles got well, it would not last. It was a precautionary step only, in view of what might happen.