“I don’t understand it,” he muttered; “do you mean that this is a serious thing?  Are you in love with some girl of our own class?  Not a mere passing fancy, that no one would think seriously of for an instant?  Just a trifling faux pas, that it is no use telling women about, eh?  I could make allowance for that, Martin, and get Julia to do the same.  Come, it cannot be any thing more.”

I did not reply to him.  Here we had come, he and I, to the very barrier that had been growing up between us ever since I had first discovered my mother’s secret and wasting grief.  He was on one side of it and I on the other—­a wall of separation which neither of us could leap over.

“Why don’t you speak, Martin?” he asked, testily.

“Because I hate the subject,” I answered.  “When I told Julia I loved another woman, I meant that some one else occupied that place in my affection which belonged rightfully to my wife; and so Julia understood it.”

“Then,” he cried with a gesture of despair, “I am a ruined man!”

His consternation and dismay were so real that they startled me; yet, knowing what a consummate actor he was, I restrained both my fear and my sympathy, and waited for him to enlighten me further.  He sat with his head bowed, and his hands hanging down, in an attitude of profound despondency, so different from his usual jaunty air, that every moment increased my anxiety.

“What can it have to do with you?” I asked, after a long pause.

“I am a ruined and disgraced man.” he reiterated, without looking up; “if you have broken off your marriage with Julia, I shall never raise my head again.”

“But why?” I asked, uneasily.

“Come down into my consulting-room,” he said, after another pause of deliberation.  I went on before him, carrying the lamp, and, turning round once or twice, saw his face look gray, and the expression of it vacant and troubled.  His consulting-room was a luxurious room, elegantly furnished; and with several pictures on the walls, including a painted photograph of himself, taken recently by the first photographer in Guernsey.  There were book-cases containing a number of the best medical works; behind which lay, out of sight, a numerous selection of French novels, more thumbed than the ponderous volumes in front.  He sank down into an easy-chair, shivering as if we were in the depth of winter.

“Martin, I am a ruined man!” he said, for the third time.

“But how?” I asked again, impatiently; for my fears were growing strong.  Certainly he was not acting a part this time.

“I dare not tell you,” he cried, leaning his head upon his desk, and sobbing.  How white his hair was! and how aged he looked!  I recollected how he used to play with me when I was a boy, and carry me before him on horseback, as long back as I could remember.  My heart softened and warmed to him as it had not done for years.

“Father!” I said, “if you can trust any one, you can trust me.  If you are ruined and disgraced I shall be the same, as your son.”