“No, my dear, I did not suppose he would. I thought--one of the islands,” said Mrs Ogilvy, in subdued tones. “One of the islands! I don’t know what you mean” (and, indeed, neither did she), “unless it were New Zealand, perhaps--that’s an island: but you would not banish him there, mother. Lew thinks he might go to India. He might begin again, and do better there.” “India--that is far, far away--and a dear passage, and all the luxuries you want there. Robbie, I would not grudge it for myself--it is for you, my dear.” “If he had plenty of money, it would be his best chance.” Mrs Ogilvy slid softly off the bed, where she had been listening. She was as generous as a princess--as princesses used to be in the time of the fairy tales; but it startled her that this stranger should expect “plenty of money” from her hands. “How could we give him that?” she said: “and whatever went to him, it would be taken from you, Robbie. If you will fix on a sum, I will do everything I can. I do not grudge him--no, no. My heart is wae for him. But to despoil my only son, my one bairn, for a stranger. It is not just, it is not what I should do----” “Would you give him a thousand pounds, mother?” “A thousand pounds!” she cried with a shriek. “Laddie, are ye wild?--the greatest part of what you will have--the half, or near the half, of all. I think one of us is out of our senses, either you or me!” CHAPTER XIX. Mrs Ainslie, who is a person with whom this history is little concerned, and whose character and antecedents I have no desire to set forth, had been moved, by the suddenness and unexpectedness of her vision through the dining-room window of the Hewan, to commit what she afterwards felt to be a great mistake. Hitherto, after the experience gained in a hundred adventures, she had found the _rôle_ which she had chosen to play in the rustic innocence of Eskholm not a difficult one. No one suspected her of anything but a little affectation, a little absurdity, and a desire to be believed a fine lady, which, if it did not deceive the better instructed, yet harmed nobody. Society, even in its most obscure developments--and especially village society--is suspicious, people say. If so--of which I am doubtful--then it is generally suspicious in the wrong way; and there was nobody in Eskholm who had the least suspicion of Mrs Ainslie’s antecedents, or imagined that she could be anything but what she professed to be, an officer’s widow. Military ladies are allowed to be like their profession, a little pushing and forward, not meek and mild like the model woman. She knew herself, of course, how much cause for suspicion there was; and she saw discovery in people’s eyes who had never even supposed any inquiry into the truth of her statements to be called for: and thus she was usually very much on her guard, notwithstanding the apparent freedom of her manners and lightness of her heart. But the sudden sight of an old