“Oh. certainly.  Tell her to come right up.”

Wondering a little at this request, Mrs. Birtwell waited for Mrs. Whitford’s appearance, rising and advancing toward the door as she heard her steps approaching.  Mrs. Whitford’s veil was down as she entered, and she did not draw it aside until she had shut the door behind her.  Then she pushed it away.

An exclamation of painful surprise fell from the lips of Mrs. Birtwell the moment she saw the face of her visitor.  It was pale and wretched beyond description, but wore the look of one who had resolved to perform some painful duty, though it cost her the intensest suffering.

CHAPTER XXV.

“I have come,” said Mrs. Whitford, after she was seated and had composed herself, “to perform the saddest duty of my whole life.”

She paused, her white lips quivering, then rallied her strength and went on: 

“Even to dishonor my son.”

She caught her breath with a great sob, and remained silent for nearly half a minute, sitting so still that she seemed like one dead.  In that brief time she had chained down her overwrought feelings and could speak without a tremor in her voice.

“I have come to say,” she now went on, “that this marriage must not take place.  Its consummation would be a great wrong, and entail upon your daughter a life of misery.  My son is falling into habits that will, I sadly fear, drag him down to hopeless ruin.  I have watched the formation and growth of this habit with a solicitude that has for a long time robbed my life of its sweetness.  All the while I see him drifting away from me, and I am powerless to hold him back.  Every day he gets farther off, and every day my heart grows heavier with sorrow.  Can nothing be done?  Alas! nothing, I fear; and I must tell you why, Mrs. Birtwell.  It is best that you should see the case as hopeless, and save your daughter if you can.”

She paused again for a few moments, and then continued: 

“It is not with my son as with most young men.  He has something more to guard against than the ordinary temptations of society.  There is, as you may possibly know, a taint in his blood—­the taint of hereditary intemperance.  I warned him of this and implored him to abjure wine and all other drinks that intoxicate, but he was proud and sensitive as well as confident in his own strength.  He began to imagine that everybody knew the family secret I had revealed to him, and that if he refused wine in public it would be attributed to his fear of arousing a sleeping appetite which when fully awake and active might prove too strong for him, and so he often drank in a kind of bravado spirit.  He would be a man and let every one see that he could hold the mastery over himself.  It was a dangerous experiment for him, as I knew it would be, and has failed.”

Mrs. Whitford broke down and sobbed in an uncontrollable passion of grief.  Then, rising, she said: