"I don't want to," says Mr. Monkton, still disgracefully frivolous.

"_I'm_ one of the things, and yet----"

"Don't!" says his wife, so abruptly, and with such an evident determination to give way to mirth, coupled with an equally strong determination to give way to tears, that he at once lays down his arms.

"Go on then," says he, seating himself beside her. She is not in the arm-chair now, but on an ancient and respectable sofa that gives ample room for the accommodation of two; a luxury denied by that old curmudgeon the arm-chair.

"Well, it is this, Freddy. When I think of that dreadful old woman, Mrs.

Burke, I feel as though you thought she was a fair sample of the rest of my family. But she is _not_ a sample, she has nothing to do with us. An uncle of my mother married her because she was rich, and there her relationship to us began and ended."

"Still----"

"Yes, I know, you needn't remind me, it seems burnt into my brain, I know she took us in after my father's death, and covered me and Joyce with benefits when we hadn't a penny in the world we could call our own.

I quite understand, indeed, that we should have starved but for her, and yet--yet--" pa.s.sionately, "I cannot forgive her for perpetually reminding us that we had _not_ that penny!"

"It must have been a bad time," says Monkton slowly. He takes her hand and smoothes it lovingly between both of his.

"She was vulgar. That was not her fault; I forgive her that. What I can't forgive her, is the fact that you should have met me in her house."

"A little unfair, isn't it?"

"Is it? You will always now a.s.sociate me with her!"

"I shan't indeed. Do you think I have up to this? Nonsense! A more absurd amalgamation I couldn't fancy."

"She was not one of us," feverishly. "I have never spoken to you about this, Freddy, since that first letter your father wrote to you just after our marriage. You remember it? And then, I couldn't explain somehow--but now--this last letter has upset me dreadfully; I feel as if it was all different, and that it was my duty to make you aware of the _real_ truth. Sir George thinks of me as one beneath him; that is not true. He may have heard that I lived with Mrs. Burke, and that she was my aunt; but if my mother's brother chose to marry a woman of no family because she had money,"--contemptuously, "that might disgrace _him_, but would not make her kin to _us_. You saw her, you--" lifting distressed eyes to his--"you thought her dreadful, didn't you?"

"I have only had one thought about her. That she was good to you in your trouble, and that but for her I should never have met you."

"That is like you," says she gratefully, yet impatiently. "But it isn't enough. I want you to understand that she is quite unlike my own _real_ people--my father, who was like a prince," throwing up her head, "and my uncle, his brother."

"You have an uncle, then?" with some surprise.

"Oh no, _had_," sadly.

"He is dead then?"

"Yes. I suppose so. You are wondering," says she quickly, "that I have never spoken to you of him or my father before. But I _could_ not. The thought that your family objected to me, despised me, seemed to compel me to silence. And you--you asked me very little."

"How could I, Barbara? Any attempt I made was repulsed. I thought it kinder to----"

"Yes--I was wrong. I see it now. But I couldn't bear to explain myself.

I told you what I could about my father, and that seemed to me sufficient. Your people's determination to regard me as impossible tied my tongue."

"I don't believe it was that," says he laughing. "I believe we were so happy that we didn't care to discuss anything but each other. Delightful subjects full of infinite variety! We have sat so lightly to the world all these years, that if my father's letter had not come this morning I honestly think we should never have thought about him again."

This is scarcely true, but he is bent on giving her mind a happier turn if possible.

"What's the good of talking to me like that, Freddy," says she reproachfully. "You know one never forgets anything of that sort. A slight I mean; and from one's own family. You are always thinking of it; you know you are."

"Well, not always, my dear, certainly--" says Mr. Monkton temporizing.

"And if even I _do_ give way to retrospection, it is to feel indignant with both my parents."

"Yes; and I don't want you to feel like that. It must be dreadful, and it is my fault. When I think how I felt towards my dear old dad, and my uncle--I----"

"Well, never mind that. I've got you, and without meaning any gross flattery, I consider you worth a dozen dads. Tell me about your uncle.

He died?"

"We don't know. He went abroad fifteen years ago. He must be dead I think, because if he were alive he would certainly have written to us.

He was very fond of Joyce and me; but no letter from him has reached us for years. He was charming. I wish you could have known him."

"So do I--if you wish it. But--" coming over and sitting down beside her, "don't you think it is a little absurd, Barbara, after all these years, to think it necessary to tell me that you have good blood in your veins? Is it not a self-evident fact; and--one more word dearest--surely you might do me the credit to understand that I could never have fallen in love with anyone who hadn't an ancestor or two."

"And yet your father----"

"I know," rising to his feet, his brow darkening. "Do you think I don't suffer doubly on your account? That I don't feel the insolence of his behavior toward you _four-fold_? There is but one excuse for him and my mother, and that lies in their terrible disappointment about my brother--their eldest son."

"I know; you have told me," begins she quickly, but he interrupts her.

"Yes, I have been more open with you than you with me. _I_ feel no pride where you are concerned. Of course my brother's conduct towards them is no excuse for their conduct towards you, but when one has a sore heart one is apt to be unjust, and many other things. You know what a heart-break he has been to the old people, _and is_! A gambler, a dishonorable gambler!" He turns away from her, and his nostrils dilate a little; his right hand grows clenched. "Every spare penny they possess has been paid over to him of his creditors, and they are not over-burdened with riches. They had set their hearts on him, and all their hopes, and when he failed them they fell back on me. The name is an old one; money was wanted. They had arranged a marriage for me, that would have been worldly wise. I _too_ disappointed them!"

"Oh!" she has sprung to her feet, and is staring at him with horrified eyes. "A marriage! There was someone else! You accuse me of want of candor, and now, you--did you ever mention this before?"

"Now, Barbara, don't be the baby your name implies," says he, placing her firmly back in her seat. "I _didn't_ marry that heiress, you know, which is proof positive that I loved you, not her."

"But she--she--" she stammers and ceases suddenly, looking at him with a glance full of question. Womanlike, everything has given way to the awful thought, that this unknown had not been unknown to him, and that perhaps he had admired--loved----

"Couldn't hold a candle to you," says he, laughing in spite of himself at her expression which, indeed, is nearly tragic. "You needn't suffocate yourself with charcoal because of her. She had made her pile, or rather her father had, at Birmingham or elsewhere, I never took the trouble to inquire, and she was undoubtedly solid in _every way_, but I don't care for the female giant, and so I--you know the rest, I met _you_; I tell you this only to soften your heart, if possible, towards these lonely, embittered old people of mine."

"Do you mean that when your brother disappointed them that they----" she pauses.

"No. They couldn't make me their heir. The property is strictly entailed (what is left of it); you need not make yourself miserable imagining you have done me out of anything more than their good-will. George will inherit whatever he has left them to leave."

"It is sad," says she, with downcast eyes.

"Yes. He has been a constant source of annoyance to them ever since he left Eton."

"Where is he now?"

"Abroad, I believe. In Italy, somewhere, or France--not far from a gaming table, you may be sure. But I know nothing very exactly, as he does not correspond with me, and that letter of this morning is the first I have received from my father for four years."

"He must, indeed, hate me," says she, in a low tone. "His elder son such a failure, and you--he considers you a failure, too."

"Well, _I_ don't consider myself so," says he, gaily.

"They were in want of money, and you--you married a girl without a penny."

"I married a girl who was in herself a mine of gold," returns he, laying his hands on her shoulders and giving her a little shake. "Come, never mind that letter, darling; what does it matter when all is said and done?"