"And yet we were so poor that until we came suddenly and unexpectedly into a fortune, my father could never afford to give me a shilling. Truly your duties must have been no ordinary ones that you should have been engaged under such circumstances. It is, I suppose, useless for me to ask for an explanation of the nature of those duties?"

"Quite useless, sir."

"Will you tell me nothing, Mrs. Fortress, that will throw light upon the dark spaces of my life?"

"I have nothing to tell, sir."

To a man less under control than myself this iteration of unwillingness would have been intolerable, but I knew that nothing was to be gained by giving way to anger. I should have been the sufferer and the loser by it.

"Looking down, Mrs. Fortress, upon the dead body of my mother, you made the remark that it was a happy release."

"Death is to all a happy release, sir."

"A common platitude, which does not deceive me."

"You cannot forget, sir, that your mother was a great sufferer."

"I forget very little. Mrs. Fortress, in this interview I think you have not behaved graciously--nay, more, that you have not behaved with fairness or justice."

"Upon that point, sir," she said composedly, "you may not be a competent judge."

Her manner was so perfectly respectful that I could not take exception to this retort. She seemed, however, to be aware that she was upon dangerous ground, for she rose, and I made no further attempt to detain her. But now it was she who lingered, unbidden, with something on her mind of which she desired to speak. I raised my head, and wondered whether, of her own free will, she was about to satisfy my curiosity.

"If I thought you were not angry, sir," she said, "and would not take offence, I should like to ask you a question, and if you answer it according to my expectation, one other in connection with it."

"I shall not take offence," I said, "and I promise to exercise less reserve than you have done."

"I thank you, sir," she said, gazing steadily at me, so steadily, indeed, as to cause me to doubt whether, in a combat of will-power between us I should be the victor. "My questions are very simple. Do you 

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