“Agatha,” he began, but at this first word, and before he could clasp the hands held helplessly out before her, she gave a great cry, and staggering back, eyed both her father and himself in a frenzy of indignation that was all the more uncontrollable from the superhuman effort which she had hitherto made to suppress it.

“You too!” she shrieked.  “You too! and I have just sworn to love, honour, and obey you!  Love you!  Honour you! the unconscionable wretch who—­”

But here Mr. Gilchrist rose.  Weak, tottering, quivering with something more than anger, he approached his daughter and laid his finger on her lips.

“Be quiet!” he said.  “Philemon is not to blame.  A month ago he came to me and prayed that as a relief to his mind I would tell him why you had separated yourself from James.  He had always thought the match, had fallen through on account of some foolish quarrel or incompatibility, but lately he had feared there was something more than he suspected in this break, something that he should know.  So I told him why you had dismissed James; and whether he knew James better than we did, or whether he had seen something in his long acquaintance with these brothers which influenced his judgment, he said at once:  ’This cannot be true of James.  It is not in his nature to defraud any man; but John—­I might believe it of John.  Isn’t there some complication here?’ I had never thought of John, and did not see how John could be mixed up with an affair I had supposed to be a secret between James and myself, but when we came to locate the day, Philemon remembered that on returning to his room that night, he had found John awaiting him.  As his room was not five doors from that occupied by Mr. Orr, he was convinced that there was more to this matter than I had suspected.  But when he laid the matter before James, he did not deny that John was guilty, but was peremptory in wishing you not to be told before your marriage.  He knew that you were engaged to a good man, a man that your father approved, a man that could and would make you happy.  He did not want to be the means of a second break, and besides, and this, I think, was at the bottom of the stand he took, for James Zabel was always the proudest man I ever knew,—­he never could bear, he said, to give to one like Agatha a name which he knew and she knew was not entirely free from reproach.  It would stand in the way of his happiness and ultimately of hers; his brother’s dishonour was his.  So while he still loved you, his only prayer was that after you were safely married and Philemon was sure of your affection, he should tell you that the man you once regarded so favourably was not unworthy of that regard.  To obey him, Philemon has kept silent, while I—­ Agatha, what are you doing?  Are you mad, my child?”

She looked so for the moment.  Tearing off the ring which she had worn but an hour, she flung it on the floor.  Then she threw her arms high up over her head and burst out in an awful voice: