There was no reply, and he turned the hall light nearly out again, and went into his consulting-room to serve the gas jet there the same, and sank into an easy-chair instead; but he had hardly allowed himself to sink back when he sprang up again, for there, in the open doorway, stood the grotesque figure of Aunt Grace, in broad-frilled, old-fashioned night-cap and dressing-gown, a flat candlestick in her hand, and a portentous frown upon her brow, as she walked straight to him, wincing sharply as one slippered foot was planted in the pool left by the cabman, but continuing her slow, important march till she was about a yard away from her nephew, when she stopped. "Why, aunt," he cried, "what's the matter? Surely you are not walking in your sleep!" "Matter?" she cried in a low, deep voice, full of the emotion which nearly choked her. "Oh, you vile, wicked, degraded boy! How dare you treat your poor sister and me like this?" "Pooh! Hush! Nonsense, old lady. It's all right. I've been dining with a friend." "With a friend!" she said, with cutting sarcasm. "Yes, at his club. There, I must have been unwell. I was a little overdone. What a terrible night." "Terrible indeed, sir, when my nephew stoops to lie to me like that. A friend--at his club! Do you think me such a baby that I do not know you have been with that abandoned woman?" "Hush! Silence!" he whispered angrily. "For your dear, dead father's and mother's sake, sir, I will not be silenced." "But you will arouse Laura." "She wants no arousing. She is lying ill in bed, sleepless in her misery, sir, with her wretched brother staying out like this." "Confound you for a silly old woman!" he cried angrily. "Is a man to live the life of a hermit? If I had been away to a patient till breakfast-time nobody would have said a word. Poor little Laury! But how absurd!" "Absurd, sir!" cried the old lady, who was scarlet with indignation. "Then I suppose it was absurd for poor Isabel Lee to have gone home broken-hearted because of your conduct." "What!" he cried, springing up, with a glimmer of memory coming back. "Why, surely you two did not canvass my being out one night till the poor girl was so upset that she--that she--went back--yes, she was stopping here. Oh, aunt, your foolish, suspicious ways are disgraceful. What have you done?" "I done, you wretched boy? It's what have you done? She was with us for a whole week after you had gone, fighting against me, and insisting that there was a reason for your being away, or that you had had an accident." "Here, aunt, are you going to be ill?" he cried, catching at her wrist; but she snatched it away. "Don't touch me, sir!" she cried. "Oh, Fred, Fred! I'd have given the world not to know that you were so wicked. And just when you were about to marry her, poor girl, to go away as you did." "_Go_ away--as I did?" he faltered, gazing at her blankly.