“Martin,” she began in a low key, but one that might run up to shrillness if advisable, “I am come to tell you something that fills me with shame and anger.  I do not know how to contain myself.  I could never have believed that I could have been so blind and foolish.  But it seems as if I were doomed to be deceived and disappointed on every hand—­I who would not deceive or disappoint anybody in the world.  I declare it makes me quite ill to think of it.  Just look at my hands, how they tremble.”

“Your nervous system is out of order,” I remarked.

“It is the world that is out of order,” she said, petulantly; “I am well enough.  Oh, I do not know how ever I am to tell you.  There are some things it is a shame to speak of.”

“Must you speak of them?” I asked.

“Yes; you must know, you will have to know all, sooner or later.  If there was any hope of it coming to nothing, I should try to spare you this; but they are both so bent upon disgracing themselves, so deaf to reason!  If my poor, dear aunt knew of it, she could not rest in her grave.  Martin, cannot you guess?  Are men born so dull that they cannot see what is going on under their own eyes?”

“I have not the least idea of what you are driving at,” I answered.  “Sit down, my dear Julia, and calm yourself.  Shall I give you a glass of wine?”

“No, no,” she said, with a gesture of impatience.  “How long is it since my poor, dear aunt died?”

“You know as well as I do,” I replied, wondering that she should touch the wound so roughly.  “Three months next Sunday.”

“And Dr. Dobree,” she said, in a bitter accent—­then stopped, looking me full in the face.  I had never heard her call my father Dr. Dobree in my life.  She was very fond of him, and attracted by him, as most women were, and as few women are attracted by me.  Even now, with all the difference in our age, the advantage being on my side, it was seldom I succeeded in pleasing as much as he did.  I gazed back in amazement at Julia’s dark and moody face.

“What now?” I asked.  “What has my unlucky father been doing now?”

“Why,” she exclaimed, stamping her foot, while the blood mantled to her forehead, “Dr. Dobree is in haste to take a second wife!  He is indeed, my poor Martin.  He wishes to be married immediately to that viper, Kate Daltrey.”

“Impossible!” I cried, stung to the quick by these words.  I remembered my mother’s mild, instinctive dislike to Kate Daltrey, and her harmless hope that I would not go over to her side.  Go over to her side!  No.  If she set her foot into this house as my mother’s successor, I would never dwell under the same roof.  As soon as my father made her his wife I would cut myself adrift from them both.  But he knew that; he would never venture to outrage my mother’s memory or my feelings in such a flagrant manner.