When Grace heard the story her face got very white and she looked at her mother with fear in her eyes.

“I suspected something, but this is worse than I thought,” she said in a low strained voice.  “But Alan is an old friend; it is not very much for him to do and perhaps he will be generous.”

Mrs. Osborn was sitting rather limply on the stone bench on the terrace, but she roused herself.

“He is hard and I think will understand what his help is worth.  He knows there is nobody else.  Besides, if we accept this favor, we cannot refuse—­”

“Oh,” said Grace, “it’s unbearable!  I never liked Alan; I feel I hate him now.”  She paused and gave Mrs. Osborn an appealing glance.  “But you cannot think I ought to agree, mother?  There must be another way!”

Mrs. Osborn shook her head.  “I cannot see another way, and many girls in our class have married men they did not like, though I had hoped for a better lot for you.  With us, women do not count; the interests of the family come first.”

“That means the men’s interests,” Grace broke out.  “Father has been reckless all his life and now Gerald has dragged our name in the mud.  He is to be saved from the consequences and I must pay!”

“It is unjust,” Mrs. Osborn agreed.  “So far as that goes, there is no more to be said.  But when one thinks of the disgrace—­Gerald hiding in America, or perhaps in prison!”

Her voice broke.  She was silent for a few moments and then resumed:  “Your father’s is the conventional point of view that I was taught to accept but which I begin to doubt.  I must choose between my daughter and my son; the son who carries on the house.  If Gerald escapes, his punishment falls on you.  The choice is almost too hard for flesh and blood.”

“I know,” said Grace, with quick sympathy.  “It is horrible!”

“Well,” said Mrs. Osborn, “the line I ought to take is plain—­Tarnside will be Gerald’s; our honor must be saved.  But I do not know.  If you shrink from Alan—­”

“If he insists, I shall hate him always.  Yet, it looks as if there was no use in rebelling.  I feel as if I had been caught in a snare that tightens when I try to break loose.  I understand why a rabbit screams and struggles until it chokes when it feels the wire.  It’s like that with me.”

Mrs. Osborn bent her head.  “My dear!  My dear!” Then she looked up irresolutely with tears in her eyes.  “I cannot see my duty as I thought.  The convention is that my son should come first, but you are nearer to me than Gerald has been for long.  I feel numb and dull; I cannot think.  Perhaps to-morrow I may see—­”

Grace got up and kissed her.  “Then, we will wait.  If no help comes, I suppose I must submit.”

She went away with a languid step and Mrs. Osborn, sinking back in a corner of the bench, looked across the lawn with vacant eyes.  In a sense, she had shirked her duty and failed her husband, but she had long given way to him and was now beginning to rebel.