Miss Brancker, so far as her means allowed, was one of the most charitable of women. She had always a number of pensioners on hand, chiefly elderly spinsters, with whom life was a continual struggle, and widows left forlorn without son or daughter to help them in their declining years.

Miss Brancker had a small--a very small--private income, the whole of which of late years, since her brother's salary had more than sufficed for the needs of the little household, she had given away in charity, not by any means always in the form of money, but in a score of other ways in which help, judiciously administered, may be made still more precious to its recipients. As Hermia grew up, she got into the way of accompanying her aunt on her weekly visits among those whom Miss Brancker held it to be a part of her duty to call upon at their own homes. During the last year and a half, however, in consequence of an affection of the knee-joint, which made much walking painful to Aunt Charlotte, Hermia had, in the majority of cases, been compelled to do the visiting alone.

Among others whom Hermia made a point of calling upon at least once a week was a' certain poor widow, Mrs. Varrel by name, who was slowly dying of an incurable malady. She had lost her husband, a retired sergeant-major with a small service pension, several years before, and latterly her sole means of livelihood had been a few shillings a week allowed her by a daughter of her former mistress, for at one time Mrs. Varrel had been maid to a lady of quality; a fact she was careful to impress upon all who were brought into contact with her. There had been a time after her husband's death, a period extending over several years, when her only son was in a position to help her, and when, in point of fact, he did help her liberally in accordance with his means. Then something dreadful had come to pass, and Richard Varrel had been able to help his mother no more.

It was this same Richard Varrel who, as the reader may or may not remember, had been one of the first on the day of the trial to congratulate John Brancker on his acquittal. He it was who, when John and those who were with him had settled themselves in the fly in which they were to be driven home, had pushed his way through the little crowd of onlookers and laid a detaining hand on the vehicle. "Mr. Brancker, sir," he said, in a voice coarsened with drink, "if such a wretch as I maybe allowed to thank heaven for anything, then I thank it that you are once more a free man. From the first I swore that whoever else might be guilty of Mr. Hazeldine's death, you were innocent. As for him--curse him! he hounded me to my ruin, and he deserved his fate. For him no pity is needed."

Up to a certain point the fortunes of Richard Varrel and Ephraim Judd had moved upon almost parallel lines. The mother of each was a widow in poor circumstances; they had both been educated at the same school, where they had both been show scholars; the elder Mr. Avison had taken a fancy to both of them, and had found humble berths for them in the Bank, where, in the course of time, they had worked themselves up to positions of trust and responsibility. But there the likeness between the two had ended, for while Ephraim Judd was a painstaking plodder, slow but sure, handsome Dick Varrel carried everything with a dash and a laughing quick-wittedness which made light of every obstacle that stood in the way of his upward career. There had been a time when he was one of the most popular young fellows in the town; but it was his social success and his fondness for company that proved his ruin. In a moment of weakness, when hard pressed by petty monetary difficulties, he did a certain thing which rendered him liable to a prosecution for felony. Detection followed. By this time the elder Mr. Avison had retired from business, and the younger one was abroad. To the latter the details of the case were reported by Mr. Hazeldine in due course, who went as far as he durst venture in his endeavors to induce the banker to take a lenient view of the affair. But Mr. Avison, while being a strictly just man, was also an inflexible one, and he sent positive orders, by return, that Varrel should be proceeded against. Mr. Hazeldine had no option but to carry out his employer's instructions, the consequence being that the handsome and popular Dick Varrel was tried and sentenced to a short term of penal servitude.

That term had expired about a year before he accosted John Brancker on the day of the latter's acquittal. How long Varrel had been in the town prior to that date, and how long he stayed there after it, John had no means of knowing. In any case, he saw him no more.

Mrs. Varrel rented a couple of rooms in one of the humblest parts of the town. Even on her bed of sickness, which she was quite aware that she should never leave till she had drawn her last breath, she held herself somewhat proudly aloof from the class of persons around her. "It is my misfortune to be compelled to live among them," she would sometimes remark to Hermia, "but I never allow them to consider that they are in any way my equals." Even with the hand of death upon her, she could not forget that for five years she had been confidential maid to Lady Warlingham. How near to breaking her heart her son's crime and its punishment had gone no one ever knew but herself. At the time she had in a measure set the world at defiance, by her protestations that Dick had been convicted on false evidence; and the world, or that infinitesimal section of it to which she had appealed, compassionating her as a mother, had made believe (while in her sight and hearing) to indorse her view of the case. For some time past, however, no one had heard her mention her son's name. He seemed as one lost to her for ever.

Mrs. Varrel always seemed especially glad to see Hermia. "You never preach at me as nearly all my other lady visitors do, and that's what I like you for," she would say. "As for them, they can't leave me an ounce of tea without reminding me that I'm not long for this world--as if I didn't know it already--and exhorting me to seek forgiveness of my sins. By the way some of them talk I might be one of the vilest of sinners. Yet, I suppose, if I were to reply that, so far as I am aware, I have led just as good a life as they, and stand no more in need of forgiveness than they do, they would be highly indignant. I only wish some of them could be made to change places with me for a single week. It would teach them a lesson they wouldn't forget to their dying day."

Hermia was in the habit of taking wine and grapes and whatever else Aunt Charlotte thought might tempt the sick woman's appetite, or help to keep up her strength; for during the last few weeks her illness had made great strides, and day by day it became more evident that the end could not much longer be delayed. Sometimes Hermia read to her; sometimes she simply chatted with her, telling her such items of local gossip as she thought would interest her. Sometimes Mrs. Varrel, when she felt a little stronger, would talk to the girl about her early life and things that had happened years before; but never once, till the end was drawing very near, did she make any mention of her son.

At length, however, there came a day when, after lying for a little space with closed eyes, she said:

"Do you know............