"But I am not coming back. I do not even know that I want to. If you had come to see mother sometimes--mother, who is just as much a lady as she ever was, who is sweeter and more beautiful than she ever was--you might have done us a great service, and I could have loved you, oh! so dearly; but you have forsaken us, because we are no longer in your set. Duchess, I must speak the truth. I hate sets; I hate distinctions of rank. You used to love us; I did think your love was genuine. We lived in a nice house in Mayfair, and you were our great and kind friend. Now you do not love us, because--because we are poor." "You are mistaken, Westenra. I love you still, and I have never forgotten you. I will not come in now, but I will come and see your mother to-morrow." "That will please her," I answered, drying away the tears which had risen to my eyes. "But please do not disappoint her. I will tell her of your visit. Do not keep her waiting. She is weak; she has been very ill. At what hour will you come?" "About twelve o'clock. But she must be very bad indeed from the way you speak." "She is far from well." "Are you hiding anything from me, Westenra?" "I am," I replied stoutly. "And you cannot get my secret from me. When you see mother to-morrow perhaps you will know without my speaking. Do not say anything to agitate her." "My poor, poor child. Westenra, you ought never to have left us. You do not look well; but never mind, spring is coming, and Jim Randolph will be home before May." CHAPTER XX RUINED It was on the afternoon of that same day that Jane Mullins sent for me to go into her private sitting-room. "Shut the door," she said, "I must talk to you." Really Jane looked most queer. During the last month or two, ever since Mr. Randolph went away, she had been taking less and less pains with her dress; her hair was rough and thinner than ever; her little round figure had fallen away; she seemed to have aged by many years. She was never a pretty woman, never in any sense of the word, but now there was something grotesque about her, grotesque and at the same time intensely pathetic. "I have done all I could," she said. "Lock the door, please, Westenra." I locked the door. "Now come and sit here, or stand by the window, or do anything you like; but listen with all your might, keep your attention alert." "Yes," I said, "yes." "We are ruined, Westenra," said Jane Mullins, "we are ruined." "What!" I cried. Jane said the words almost ponderously, and then she threw her hands to her sides and gazed at me with an expression which I cannot by any possibility describe. "We are ruined," she repeated, "and it is time you should know it." "But how?" I asked.