About the time that he learned of Ward’s residence in the same house with Anna Burns, he had resolved to open his heart to his mother, and tell her all. Savage had at this time resolved to make Anna Burns his wife. The first step he took in that direction was to seek Georgiana Halstead, and ask her aid in removing the object of his love to a less revolting home, and in surrounding her with associates kindred to her character rather than her position. This done, he fully intended to make that proud mother his next confidant. A single hour had swept all these honorable projects from his mind. He had listened with scornful incredulity to the charges made against the lady of his love by Miss Eliza. But his own eyes were not to be disbelieved; the evidence of that roughly honest landlady had been complete. He had been about to sacrifice himself to an artful, unprincipled girl, who could share love, true and generous as his, with a creature like that Ward. He had seen them together; he had seen her hand in his. He knew that they dwelt under the same squalid roof. It was enough. Never, in this world, would he mention that girl’s name to his mother. She had wronged him too cruelly. Savage, stung to the soul with these feelings, sent a note to his mother that he was going into the country for a few days—and went away, in what direction he neither knew nor cared. He had been humiliated, wounded in his love and in his pride beyond bearing; so much as he had been willing to give up for the sake of that girl’s love—and she knew it. The infatuation must have been coarse and deep which could have led her from the prospects his love would have secured, to the evil fortunes of that gambler. Mrs. Savage received her son’s note just after Eliza Halstead left the house. She was glad to know that he had left town. In her present state of feeling she could not have met him with the equanimity which her pride demanded. While he was gone, she would see this girl, and sweep away the temptation that had beset him, if eloquence or money could do it. It was honorable to the mother, and most honorable to the son, that Mrs. Savage never once imputed a dishonorable thought to the visits that had been described to her—proud, generous women like her are not apt to think the worst of human nature. She would have felt as much degraded by an immoral or dishonorable act in her son, as if it had fastened upon her own person. “If I do not prevent it, he will marry this girl,” she said; “and I, fool that I was, have cast her in his way. There is poor Georgiana wronged and deserted. Not that he ever said much to her; but I had so set my heart on it, that every word I said to the dear child was a promise. Heaven bless that vicious old maid for warning me in time! What a character she is—how silkily she kept down the venom of her tongue. I wonder Halstead can endure her in the house.”