Teach them to be good, and to do their duty.
They have learned all when they have learned that." For the first time in her life, the thought came home to Dora: How was she to teach what she had never learned and had failed to practice?
That night, long after Lady Earle had gone away, and the children had fallen to sleep, Dora knelt in the moonlight and prayed that she might learn to teach her children to do their duty.
As Lady Earle wished, the old farm house was left intact, and a new group of buildings added to it.

There was a pretty sitting room for Dora, and a larger one to serve as a study for the children, large sleeping rooms, and a bathroom, all replete with comfort.

Two years passed before all was completed, and Lady Earle thought it time to send a governess to the Elms.
* * * * * During those years little or nothing was heard from Ronald.

After reading the cold letter Dora left for him, it seemed as though all love, all care, all interest died out of his heart.

He sat for many long hours thinking of the blighted life "he could not lay down, yet cared little to hold." He was only twenty-three--the age at which life opens to most men; yet he was worn, tired, weary of everything--the energies that once seemed boundless, the ambition once so fierce and proud, all gone.