while she waited for news of the clergyman’s safety.  Her family always disapproved of the second marriage.  My father had no money, it seemed; and mamma was well off, having means of her own to start with, like Aunt Emma, and having inherited also her first husband’s property, which was very considerable.  He had left it to his little girl, and after her to his wife; so that first my father, and then I myself, came in, in the end, to both the little estates, though my mother’s had been settled on the children of the first marriage.  Aunt Emma always thought my father had married for money:  and she said he had been hard and unkind to mamma:  not indeed cruel; he wasn’t a cruel man; but severe and wilful.  He made her do exactly as he wished about everything, in a masterful sort of way, that no woman could stand against.  He crushed her spirit entirely, Aunt Emma told me; she had no will of her own, poor thing:  his individuality was so strong, that it overrode my mother’s weak nature rough-shod.

Not that he was rough.  He never scolded her; he never illtreated her; but he said to her plainly, “You are to do so and so;” and she obeyed like a child.  She never dared to question him.

So Aunt Emma had always said my mother was badly used, especially in money matters—­the money being all, when one came to think of it, her own or her first husband’s;—­and as a consequence, auntie was never invited to The Grange during my father’s lifetime.

When we reached Barton-on-the-Sea, Jane and I, on our way from Woodbury, Aunt Emma was waiting at the station to meet us.  To my great disappointment, I could see at first sight she didn’t care for Jane:  and I could also see at first sight Jane didn’t care for her.  This was a serious blow to me, for I leaned upon those two more than I leaned upon anyone; and I had far too few friends in the world of my own, to afford to do without any one of them.

In the evening, however, when I went up to my own room to bed, Jane came up to help me as she always did at Woodbury.  I began at once to tax her with not liking Aunt Emma.  With a little hesitation, Jane admitted that at first sight she hadn’t felt by any means disposed to care for her.  I pressed her hard as to why.  Jane held off and prevaricated.  That roused my curiosity:—­you see, I’m a woman.  I insisted upon knowing.

“Oh, miss, I can’t tell you!” Jane cried, growing red in the face, “I can’t bear to say it out.  You oughtn’t to ask.  It’ll hurt you to know I even thought such a thing of her!”

“You must tell me, Jane,” I exclaimed, with a cold shudder of terror, half guessing what she meant.  “Don’t keep me in suspense.  Let me know what it is.  I’m accustomed to shocks now.  I know I can stand them.”

Jane answered nothing directly.  She only held out her coarse red hand and asked me, with a face growing pale as she spoke: 

“Where’s that picture of the murder?”