It might have been so, for she said at last, almost with a gasp, "I wish my son to be Bruce-Montgomerie." "Be it so." After that Lord Cairnforth was long silent.
Helen resumed the conversation by asking if he did not think it dangerous, almost wrong, to tell the boy of this brilliant future immediately after his errors?
"No, not after errors confessed and forsaken.

Remember, it was over very rags that the prodigal's father put upon him the purple robe.

But our boy is not a prodigal, Helen.

I know him well, and I have faith in him, and faith in human nature--especially Cardross nature." And the earl smiled.

"Far deeper than any harshness will smite him the consciousness of being forgiven and trusted--of being expected to carry out in his future life all that was a-missing in two not particularly happy lives, his mother's--and mine." Helen Bruce resisted no more.