"I will go down to Ulverston," he said to himself, "and with God's help I will be a wiser and a better man."
He saw what his mistaken notions of chivalry had done for him—how completely they had misled him—how near they had brought him to ruin and disgrace. The meeting between mother and son was not the most pleasant in the world. Lady Carruthers, stately, sensitive, and proud, could not forgive the dark disgrace under which her son had lain. He saw how deeply she felt it.
"Mother," he said, "you must judge me leniently. I own myself mistaken. I think, sometimes, I must have been mad, I cannot tell you precisely what took me to prison. Will you believe me that it was for a woman's sake?"
"I knew it!" she interrupted.
"It was to screen a woman's folly," he continued. "And, indeed, wrong as I was, I believed myself to be doing a most chivalrous deed."
"It is a great pity, Basil," said Lady Carruthers.
"Yes," he said, quietly; "but I was a woman's dupe, and I have suffered enough. It was one false step, but I shall spend my life in trying to redeem it."
He kept his word. In four years' time the name of Basil Carruthers rang through the land with a pleasant sound; he had, indeed, found something to do.
He was returned for the borough of Rutsford, and his fame as an able and eloquent orator spread over the country.
Then he studied to become a model landlord; he built large, airy cottages and schools; he paid the attention that every landlord ought to pay that the land be well drained, well cultivated. He was a friend to all his tenants, a benefactor to his dependants. In the course of time people forgot to whisper there had been some story about Mr. Carruthers; they only mentioned him in terms of praise. The very quality that his mother once thought would be against him now proved to be in his favor. If he was more romantic, more enthusiastic than other young men, he employed the superabundance of his gifts to excellent purpose.