He kissed her again, and tore himself away. The street door slammed behind him: they heard his footsteps as he strode away. He had gone.

Then Elsie fell into loud weeping and wailing. But Hilda went to comfort her mother.

'Mother,' she said, 'did he really, really and truly do it?'

'What else can I believe? Either he did it or that old clerk. Where is he?'

'He is gone. He says he will come back when his innocence is proved. Mother, if he is innocent, why does he run away? It's foolish to say that it is because we believe it. I've said nothing except that you couldn't believe it without reasons. Innocent young men don't run away when they are charged with robbery. They stay and fight it out. Athelstan should have stayed.'

Later on, when they were both a little recovered, Hilda tried to consider the subject more calmly. She had not her mother's cleverness, but she was not without parts. The following remarks—made by a girl of eighteen—prove so much.

'Mother,' she said, 'perhaps it is better, so long as this suspicion rests upon him, that he should be away. We shall certainly know where he is: he will want money, and will write for it. If it should prove that somebody else did the thing, we can easily bring him back as a martyr—for my own part I should be so glad that I would willingly beg his pardon on my knees—and of course we could easily get him replaced in the office. If it is proved that he did do it—and that, you think, they will be certain to find out—Mr. Dering, for your sake, will be ready to hush it up—perhaps we may get the notes back—he can't have used them all; in any case it will be a great comfort to feel that he is out of the way: a brother convicted—tried in open court—sentenced—oh!' She shuddered. 'We should never get over it: never, never! It would be a most dreadful thing for Elsie and me. As for his going away, if people ask why he is gone and where, we must invent something—we can easily make up a story—hint that he has been wild—there is no disgrace, happily, about a young man being wild—that is the only thing that reconciles one to the horrid selfishness of wild young men—and if, by going away in a pretended rage, Athelstan has really enabled us to escape a horrid scandal—why, mother, in that case—we may confess that the blow has been by Providence most mercifully softened for us—most mercifully. We ought to consider that, mother.'

'Yes, dear, yes. But he is gone. Athelstan is gone. And his future seems ruined. There is no hope for him. I can see no hope whatever. My dear, he was so promising. I thought that all the family influence would be his—we haven't got a single City solicitor in the whole family. I thought that he was so clever and so ambitious and so eager to get on and make money and be a credit to the family. Solicitors do sometimes—especially City solicitors—become so very, very rich; and now it is all gone and done—and nothing left to hope but the miserable wish that there should be no scandal.'

'It is indeed dreadful. But still—consider—no scandal. Mother, I think we should find out, if we can, something about his private life—how he has been living. He has been out a good deal of evenings lately. If there is any—any person—on whom he has been tempted to spend money—if he has been gambling—or betting, or any of the things that I read of'—this young lady, thanks to the beneficent assistance of certain works of fiction, was tolerably acquainted with the ways of young men and their temptations—'it would be a satisfaction to know it at least.'

The ladies of a family where there is a 'wild' young man do not generally find it easy to get at the facts of his wildness: these remain locked up in the bosoms of his companions. No details could be learned about any wildness—quite the contrary. He seemed, so far as could be learned, to have led a very quiet and regular life. 'But then,' said the philosopher of eighteen, quoting from a novel, 'men shelter each other. They are all bad together.'