Hearing no response to this question, Aunt Bridget went on to say that what was coming would be a bond between me and my husband.

“It always is.  It was in my case, anyway.  The old colonel didn’t behave very well after our marriage, and times and times I was telling myself I had made a rue bargain; but when Betsy came I thought, ’I might have done better, but I might have done worse, and he’s the father of my offspring, anyway.’”

Hearing no response to this either, Aunt Bridget went on to talk of Alma and her mother.  Was not this the woman I suspected with my husband—­the young one with the big eyes and “the quality toss with her?” Then why did I have a person like that about the house?

“If you need bright and cheerful company, what’s amiss with your aunt and your first cousin?  Some people are selfish, but I thank the saints I don’t know what selfishness is.  I’m willing to do for you what I did for your poor mother, and I can’t say more than that, can I?”

I must have made some kind of response, for Aunt Bridget went on to say it might be a sacrifice, but then she wouldn’t be sorry to leave the Big House either.

“I’m twenty years there, and now I’m to be a servant to my own stepchild.  Dear heart knows if I can bear it much longer.  The way that Nessy is carrying on with your father is something shocking.  I do believe she’ll marry the man some day.”

To escape from a painful topic I asked after my father’s health.

“Worse and worse, but Conrad’s news was like laughing-gas to the man.  He would have come with me to-day, but the doctor wouldn’t hear of it.  He’ll come soon though, and meantime he’s talking and talking about a great entertainment.”

“Entertainment?”

“To celebrate the forthcoming event, of course, though nobody is to know that except ourselves, it seems.  Just a house-warming in honour of your coming home after your marriage—­that’s all it’s to be on the outside, anyway.”

I made some cry of pain, and Aunt Bridget said: 

“Oh, I know what you’re going to say—­why doesn’t he wait?  I’ll tell you why if you’ll promise not to whisper a word to any one.  Your father is a sick man, my dear.  Let him say what he likes when Conrad talks about cancer, he knows Death’s hand is over him.  And thinking it may fall before your time has come, he wants to take time by the forelock and see a sort of fulfilment of the hope of his life—­and you know what that is.”

It was terrible.  The position in which I stood towards my father was now so tragic that (wicked as it was) I prayed with all my heart that I might never look upon his face again.

I was compelled to do so.  Three days after Aunt Bridget’s visit my father came to see me.  The day was fine and I was walking on the lawn when his big car came rolling up the drive.

I was shocked to see the change in him.  His face was ghastly white, his lips were blue, his massive and powerful head seemed to have sunk into his shoulders, and his limbs were so thin that his clothes seemed to hang on them; but the stern mouth was there still, and so was the masterful lift of the eyebrows.