“To be pitied did you say?” asked Mrs. Glenarm, doubtful whether her ears had not deceived her.

“To be pitied,” repeated Julius.

“You may find it convenient, Mr. Delamayn, to forget what your brother has told us about that person. I happen to remember it.”

“So do I, Mrs. Glenarm.  But, with my experience of Geoffrey—­” He hesitated, and ran his fingers nervously over the strings of his violin.

“You don’t believe him?” said Mrs. Glenarm.

Julius declined to admit that he doubted his brother’s word, to the lady who was about to become his brother’s wife.

“I don’t quite go that length,” he said.  “I find it difficult to reconcile what Geoffrey has told us, with Miss Silvester’s manner and appearance—­”

“Her appearance!” cried Mrs. Glenarm, in a transport of astonishment and disgust. “Her appearance!  Oh, the men!  I beg your pardon—­I ought to have remembered that there is no accounting for tastes.  Go on—­pray go on!”

“Shall we compose ourselves with a little music?” suggested Julius.

“I particularly request you will go on,” answered Mrs. Glenarm, emphatically.  “You find it ’impossible to reconcile’—­”

“I said ‘difficult.’”

“Oh, very well.  Difficult to reconcile what Geoffrey told us, with Miss Silvester’s manner and appearance.  What next?  You had something else to say, when I was so rude as to interrupt you.  What was it?”

“Only this,” said Julius.  “I don’t find it easy to understand Sir Patrick Lundie’s conduct in permitting Mr. Brinkworth to commit bigamy with his niece.”

“Wait a minute!  The marriage of that horrible woman to Mr. Brinkworth was a private marriage.  Of course, Sir Patrick knew nothing about it!”

Julius owned that this might be possible, and made a second attempt to lead the angry lady back to the piano.  Useless, once more!  Though she shrank from confessing it to herself, Mrs. Glenarm’s belief in the genuineness of her lover’s defense had been shaken.  The tone taken by Julius—­moderate as it was—­revived the first startling suspicion of the credibility of Geoffrey’s statement which Anne’s language and conduct had forced on Mrs. Glenarm.  She dropped into the nearest chair, and put her handkerchief to her eyes.  “You always hated poor Geoffrey,” she said, with a burst of tears.  “And now you’re defaming him to me!”

Julius managed her admirably.  On the point of answering her seriously, he checked himself.  “I always hated poor Geoffrey,” he repeated, with a smile.  “You ought to be the last person to say that, Mrs. Glenarm!  I brought him all the way from London expressly to introduce him to you.”

“Then I wish you had left him in London!” retorted Mrs. Glenarm, shifting suddenly from tears to temper.  “I was a happy woman before I met your brother.  I can’t give him up!” she burst out, shifting back again from temper to tears.  “I don’t care if he has deceived me.  I won’t let another woman have him!  I will be his wife!” She threw herself theatrically on her knees before Julius.  “Oh, do help me to find out the truth!” she said.  “Oh, Julius, pity me!  I am so fond of him!”