eceiving a deputation. "Yes?" she said, interrogatively. Sir
Patrick paid a private tribute of pity to his late brother's memory, and
entered on his business.

"We won't call it a painful matter," he began. "Let us say it's a matter
of domestic anxiety. Blanche--"

Lady Lundie emitted a faint scream, and put her hand over her eyes.

"_Must_ you?" cried her ladyship, in a tone of touching remonstrance.
"Oh, Sir Patrick, _must_ you?"

"Yes. I must."

Lady Lundie's magnificent eyes looked up at that hidden court of human
appeal which is lodged in the ceiling. The hidden court looked down at
Lady Lundie, and saw--Duty advertising itself in the largest capital
letters.

"Go on, Sir Patrick. The motto of woman is Self-sacrifice. You sha'n't
see how you distress me. Go on."

Sir Patrick went on impenetrably--without betraying the slightest
expression of sympathy or surprise.

"I was about to refer to the nervous attack from which Blanche has
suffered this morning," he said. "May I ask whether you have been
informed of the cause to which the attack is attributable?"

"There!" exclaimed Lady Lundie with a sudden bound in her chair, and a
sudden development of vocal power to correspond. "The one thing I shrank
from speaking of! the cruel, cruel, cruel behavior I was prepared to
pass over! And Sir Patrick hints on it! Innocently--don't let me do an
injustice--innocently hints on it!"

"Hints on what, my dear Madam?"

"Blanche's conduct to me this morning. Blanche's heartless secrecy.
Blanche's undutiful silence. I repeat the words: Heartless secrecy.
Undutiful silence."

"Allow me for one moment, Lady Lundie--"

"Allow _me,_ Sir Patrick! Heaven knows how unwilling I am to speak of
it. Heaven knows that not a word of reference to it escaped _my_ lips.
But you leave me no choice now. As mistress of the household, as a
Christian woman, as the widow of your dear brother, as a mother to this
misguided girl, I must state the facts. I know you mean well; I know you
wish to spare me. Quite useless! I must state the facts."

Sir Patrick bowed, and submitted. (If he had only been a bricklayer! and
if Lady Lundie had not been, what her ladyship unquestionably was, the
strongest person of the two!)

"Permit me to draw a veil, for your sake," said Lady Lundie, "over the
horrors--I can not, with the best wish to spare you, conscientiously
call them by any other name--the horrors that took place up stairs. The
moment I heard