"Of course I did: at the time when he was intimate with your father. We never quite knew who he was, Arthur; or who his people were at home, or what had taken him originally to India; but Major Bohun was unsuspicious as the day, as you yourself. There arose great trouble, Arthur; gambling and wickedness, and I can't tell you what: and through it all, nearly up to the last, your father believed in Adair." "Was he a convict _then?_" "No, no; all that came afterwards: not the crime, perhaps, but discovery, trial, and conviction. Arthur--how sorry I am to say it, I can never tell you--your father's son had better go and marry that miserable drab, than a daughter of William Adair." She pointed to a poor wretch that was passing. A gaunt skeleton of a woman, with paint on her hollow cheeks, and a tawdry gown trailing in the mud. Arthur pressed his hands to his temples; all sorts of confused thoughts were fighting together within his breast. "Did Mrs. Cumberland know of this?" he asked. "I cannot say. _Her husband did_. At the time it all happened, Mrs. Cumberland was away in ill-health. I should think she would hear it from her husband afterwards." "Then--how could she encourage me to enter into this contract with Miss Adair?" returned Arthur, in a flash of resentment. "You must never see her again, Arthur; you must never see her again. Go abroad for a time if need be: it may be the better plan." "What am I to say to them?" he cried in self-commune. "After all, Ellen is not responsible for her father's sins." A spasm caught madam. Was this information not sufficient?--would he carry out the marriage yet? "Arthur, there's worse behind," she breathed. "Why can't you be satisfied?--why do you force me to tell you all?--I would have spared you the rest." "What rest?" he asked, his lips turning white. "About that man--William Adair." "What rest?" "He killed your father." "Killed--my father?" "Yes. He forged his name; he ruined him: and in the shock--in the shock--he----" Madam stopped. "What?" gasped Arthur. "Well, the shock killed your father." "Do you mean that he died of it?" "He could not bear the trouble; and he--shot himself." Madam's face was white now: white with emotion. Arthur, in _his_ emotion, seized her hand, and gazed at her. "It is true," she whispered. "He shot himself in the trouble and disgrace that Adair brought upon him. And you, his son, would have married the man's daughter!" With a horrible fear of what he had all but done--with a remorse that nearly turned him mad--with a sort of unformed vow never again to see Mrs. Cumberland or Ellen Adair, Arthur Bohun dropped his mother's hand with a suppressed groan, and kept silence until they stopped before the house of Sir Nash Bohun. Mechanically he looked up at the windows, and saw that the shutters were open. So James was not dead. Arthur gave his hand to madam, to help her in.