“His memories are anything but pleasant,” returned Mrs. Liddell, gravely.  “His wife, of whom I believe he was fond in his own way, left him when their only child, a son, was about ten years old.  This seemed to turn his blood to gall.  He took an unnatural dislike to his poor boy, and treated him so badly that he ran away to sea.  Poor fellow? he used sometimes to write to your father.  Their mutual dislike to John Liddell was a kind of bond between them.  It is an unhappy story, for, as I told you, he was afterward killed at the gold diggings.

“Very dreadful!” said Katherine, thoughtfully.  “What a cruel visiting of the mother’s sin on the unfortunate child!—­that horrible bit of the decalogue!  With all his icy cold selfishness Mr. Liddell is a gentleman.  His voice is refined, and except when he was carried away by hi-fury against his roguish housekeeper he seems to have a certain self-respect.  After Mr. Newton went away I read for a long time all the money articles in two penny papers, for the Times had been taken away.  Then I wrote a couple of letters, and all my uncle said was:  ’So it seems you really are my niece.  Well, I hope you know more of the value of money than either your father or mother.’  I could not let that pass, and said, ’My father died when I was too young to know him; but no one could manage money better nor with greater care than my mother.’  He stared at me.  ’I am glad to hear it,’ he returned, very dryly.  He had a note from his stock-broker in reply to one I wrote for him yesterday.  He seemed greatly pleased with it.  He kept chuckling and murmuring, ’Just in time, just in time!’”

“Perhaps he will fancy you bring him luck.”

“I am awfully afraid he will want me to go and read to him every day, for when I was directing one of the letters he said, as though to himself, ’If she can read and write for me I need not buy a new pair of spectacles.’  It would be too dreadful to be with that cynical hyena every day.”

“Oh, when he gets a good servant he will not want you.”

“I hope not.”

“Now come, you must have your supper, dear.  I am sure you have earned it.  We will have it quietly together before Ada comes back.  I feel so relieved, I shall be able to eat now.”

CHAPTER V.

“INTO THE SHADOWS.”

To avoid Mrs. Frederic Liddell’s almost screaming curiosity was not easy, and to appease it Kate assumed an air of frankness, saying that she believed Mr. Liddell merely wished to test her powers as secretary, and that she hoped she had not succeeded too well.

“Oh, you lazy thing!  You really ought to try and get in with him.  Oughtn’t she, Mrs. Liddell?”

“Yes, certainly, if she can; but I fancy it will not be so easy.  What are you going to do to-day, Ada?”

“Oh, nothing”—­in a rather discontented tone.  “Why do you ask?”

“Because I am obliged to go into town on a matter of business, and I want to take Katherine.”