se what life in Canada
might mean for him?

His wife's eyes were still shining with the zest of her present encounter.
She was too engrossed by that to consider just then the far heavier task
she would presently have to undertake. She shrugged her shoulders and made
a gesture with her hands that implied the throwing of all further
responsibility upon her antagonists. "If you will have it," she seemed to
say, "you must take the consequences." And old Jervaise, at all events,
foresaw what was coming, and at that eleventh hour made one last effort to
avert it.

"You know, Frank..." he began, but Mrs. Banks interrupted him.

"It is useless, Mr. Jervaise," she said. "Mr. Frank has been making love
to my daughter and she has shown him plainly how she despises him. After
that he will not listen to you. He seeks his revenge. It is the manner of
your family to make love in that way."

"Impertinence will not make things any easier for you, Mrs. Banks," Frank
interpolated.

"Impertinence? From me to you?" the little woman replied magnificently.
"Be quiet, boy, you do not know what you are saying. My husband and I have
saved your poor little family from disgrace for twenty years, and I would
say nothing now, if it were not that you have compelled me."

She threw one glance of contempt at old Jervaise, who was leaning forward
with his hand over his mouth, as if he were in pain, and then continued,--

"But it is as well that you should know the truth, and after all, the
secret remains in good keeping. And you understand that it is apropos to
that case you are threatening. It might be as well for you to know before
you bring that case against us."

"Well," urged Frank sardonically. He was, I think, the one person in the
room who was not tense with expectation. Nothing but physical fear could
penetrate that hide of his.

"Well, Mr. Frank," she did not deign to imitate him, but she took up his
word as if it were a challenge. "Well, it is as well for you to know that
Brenda is not your mother's daughter." She turned as she spoke to Brenda
herself, with a protective gesture of her little hand. "I know it will not
grieve you, dear, to hear that," she continued. "It is not as if you were
so attached to them all at the Hall..."

"But who, then...?" Brenda began, evidently too startled by this
astonishing news to realise its true significance.

"She was my step-sister, Claire Severac, dear," Mrs. Banks explained. "She
was Olive's