'He――he did not speak well of your mother. He led me to――to think; but I will enter into no particulars.' 'Olver is our mortal enemy. I do not know wherefore, unless it be that he has been filching the money all these years. He hates mother, and he dislikes me. If he has dared to speak against _her_, he shall be called to account. There is one whom I can trust'――she held up her head――'one who will take him by the throat and make him unsay every word.' Mr. Holwood knew that she did not refer to himself, and he was humbled at the thought that his child should look to another to vindicate her mother's good name. 'No,' said Winefred, with heightened colour and sparkling eyes, and speaking with vehemence, 'my dear mother has done nothing to forfeit your esteem, nothing to dishonour your name. She has been poor, and has huxtered tapes and packets of pins, and has trudged through rain and mire, and there is none in all the country round who can say an ill word against her that has in it a spice even of truth.' 'And she is now in poverty?' Then, and not till this moment, did the recollection of the one great and terrible fault committed by her mother recur to Winefred. She suddenly dropped her head and covered her face with her hands. CHAPTER XLVII THE CURTAIN DRAWN Jane Marley was unaccountably restless. She sat at needlework, but could not remain at it. A disquiet that was inexplicable kept her on the move throughout the day. Her daughter had left her precipitately, had gone back to Bath, without a word of explanation as to her purpose, whether to remain there or to return. Jane could not sound Winefred's heart. She was in doubt whether the girl intended to abandon her and adhere to her father, or whether she proposed to pay her occasional visits. The girl had been reticent towards her regarding Jack Rattenbury. From what she had said, and this was not much, Jane judged that Winefred acknowledged that union with him was not possible, and yet adhered to her resolution not to banish him from her heart. Jane was well aware that the two had met on the downs almost every evening. The girl was altered in her demeanour towards her mother since the discovery of the appropriation of Captain Rattenbury's hoard. Jane could have bitten out her tongue with mortification at having blurted forth the truth. But in the moment of excessive agitation, under the pang of remorse, of fear lest Jack's life should be sacrificed, she had lost control over her words. Her conscience had cried out in audible tones, and though the words had been few, the accent had sufficed to convey to Winefred the revelation of the fraud committed. And yet, as Jane reasoned with herself, Winefred must have arrived at the truth shortly by another road.