Descending to the ground-floor of the house, I sent to request a moment’s interview with the landlady. I had yet to learn in which of the London prisons Van Brandt was confined; and she was the only person to whom I could venture to address the question.

Having answered my inquiries, the woman put her own sordid construction on my motive for visiting the prisoner.

“Has the money you left upstairs gone into his greedy pockets already?” she asked. “If I was as rich as you are, I should let it go. In your place, I wouldn’t touch him with a pair of tongs!”

The woman’s coarse warning actually proved useful to me; it started a new idea in my mind! Before she spoke, I had been too dull or too preoccupied to see that it was quite needless to degrade myself by personally communicating with Van Brandt in his prison. It only now occurred to me that my legal advisers were, as a matter of course, the proper persons to represent me in the matter — with this additional advantage, that they could keep my share in the transaction a secret even from Van Brandt himself.

I drove at once to the office of my lawyers. The senior partner — the tried friend and adviser of our family — received me.

My instructions, naturally enough, astonished him. He was immediately to satisfy the prisoner’s creditors, on my behalf, without mentioning my name to any one. And he was gravely to accept as security for repayment — Mr. Van Brandt’s note of hand!

“I thought I was well acquainted with the various methods by which a gentleman can throw away his money,” the senior partner remarked. “I congratulate you, Mr. Germaine, on having discovered an entirely new way of effectually emptying your purse. Founding a newspaper, taking a theater, keeping race-horses, gambling at Monaco, are highly efficient as modes of losing money. But they all yield, sir, to paying the debts of Mr. Van Brandt!”

I left him, and went home.

The servant who opened the door had a message for me from my mother. She wished to see me as soon as I was at leisure to speak to her.

I presented myself at once in my mother’s sitting-room.

“Well, George?” she said, without a word to prepare me for what was coming. “How have you left Mrs. Van Brandt?”

I was completely thrown off my guard.

“Who has told you that I have seen Mrs. Van Brandt?” I asked.

“My dear, your face has told me. Don’t I know by this time how you look and how you speak when Mrs. Van Brandt is in your mind. Sit down by me. I have something to say to you which I wanted to say this morning; but, I hardly know why, my heart failed me. I am bolder now, and I can say it. My son, you still love Mrs. Van Brandt. You have my permission to marry her.”

Those were the words! Hardly an hour had elapsed since Mrs. Van Brandt’s own lips had told me that our union was impossible. Not even half an hour had passed since I had given the directions which would restore to liberty the man who was the one obstacle to my marriage. And this was the time that my mother had innocently chosen for consenting to receive as her daughter-in-law Mrs. Van Brandt!

“I see that I surprise you,” she resumed. “Let me explain my motive as plainly as I can. I should not be speaking the truth, George, if I told you that I have ceased to feel the serious objections that there are to your marrying this lady. The only difference in my way of thinking is, that I am now willing to set my objections aside, out of regard for your happiness. I am an old woman, my dear. In the course of nature, I cannot hope to be with you much longer. When I am gone, who will be left to care for you and love you, in the place of your mother? No one will be left, unless you marry Mrs. Van Brandt. Your happiness is my first considerat............