‘O mamma! mamma!  Gilbert! let me tell her,’ cried the child; and Albinia, throwing herself on her knees, clasped him in her arms, as though snatching him from the demon of deceit.

‘Tell all, Maurice,’ said Gilbert, folding his arms; ’it is to your credit, if you would believe so.  I shall be glad to have this misery ended any way!  It was all for the sake of others.’

‘Mamma,’ Maurice said, in the midst of these mutterings of his unhappy brother, ’I can’t have the cannon without papa knowing it all.  I couldn’t shake hands with Uncle Maurice for telling the truth, for I had not told it.’

‘And what is it, my boy?’ tell me now, no one can hinder you.’

’I scratched and fought him—­Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy—­I kicked down the decanter of wine.  They told me it was manly not to tell, and I promised.’

He was crying with the exceeding pain and distress of a child whose tears were rare, and Albinia rocked him in her arms.

Gilbert cautiously shut the door, and said sadly, ’Maurice behaved nobly, if he would only believe so.  You would be proud of your son if you had seen him.  They wanted to make him drink wine, and he was fighting them off.’

‘And where were you, Gilbert, you to whom I trusted him?’

‘I could not help it,’ said Gilbert; then as her lip curled with contempt, and her eye spoke disappointment, he cast himself on the ground, exclaiming, ’Oh, if you knew how I have been mixed up with others, and what I have gone through, you would pity me.  Oh, Maurice, don’t cry, when I would give worlds to be like you.  Why do you let him cry? why don’t you tell him what a brave noble boy he is?’

‘I don’t know what to think or believe,’ said Albinia, coldly, but returning vehemently to her child, she continued, ’Maurice, my dear, no one is angry with you!  You, at least, I can depend on.  Tell me where you have been, and what they have been doing to you.’

Even with Gilbert’s explanations, she could hardly understand Maurice’s narrative, but she gathered that on Thursday, the brothers had ridden out, and were about to turn homewards, when Archie Tritton, of whom to her vexation Maurice spoke familiarly, had told Gilbert that a friend was waiting for him at the inn connected with the training stables, three miles farther on.  Gilbert had demurred, but was told the matter would brook no delay, and yielded on being pressed.  He tried to suppress the friend’s name, but Maurice had called him Mr. Cavendish Dusautoy.

While Gilbert was engaged with him, Tritton had introduced Maurice to the horses and stable boys, whose trade had inspired him with such emulation, that he broke off in the midst of his confession to ask whether he could be a jockey and also a gentleman.  All this had detained them till so late, that they had been drawn into staying to dinner.  Maurice had gone on very happily, secure that he was right in Gilbert’s hands, and only laying up a few curious words for explanation; but when he was asked to drink wine, he stoutly answered that mamma did not allow it.