killed, I have done it in fair fight."

But she went on unheeding,--"Is it not enough, that, after having
squandered on your fellows all the money that you could wring from my
bounty, or win at your brutal sports, you should have robbed your own
father, collected his rents behind his back, taken money and goods from
his tenants by threats and blows; but that, after outraging them, you must
add to all this a worse sin likewise,--outraging God, and driving me--me
who have borne with you, me who have concealed all for your sake--to tell
your father that of which the very telling will turn my hair to gray?"

"So you will tell my father?" said Hereward, coolly.

"And if I should not, this monk himself is bound to do so, or his
superior, your Uncle Brand."

"My Uncle Brand will not, and your monk dare not."

"Then I must. I have loved you long and well; but there is one thing which
I must love better than you: and that is, my conscience and my Maker."

"Those are two things, my lady mother, and not one; so you had better not
confound them. As for the latter, do you not think that He who made the
world is well able to defend his own property,--if the lands and houses
and cattle and money which these men wheedle and threaten and forge out of
you and my father are really His property, and not merely their plunder?
As for your conscience, my lady mother, really you have done so many good
deeds in your life, that it might be beneficial to you to do a bad one
once in a way, so as to keep your soul in a wholesome state of humility."