"I'm sure I do everything I possibly can to make her content and happy," impetuously exclaimed Mrs. Forrest. "And it's all her own fault if she isn't. She--she needn't have come at all. Mr. Courtlandt told her and told Captain Forrest that it should make no difference; but she is self-willed and obstinate, and nothing would do but she must quit his roof forever and come to be a burden on her brother, who has quite enough to stagger under already." ("Hum!" thought Bayard at this juncture, "how little she realizes the truth of that assertion!") "Mr. Courtlandt had been devoted to her from her childhood, had lavished everything on her, had educated her, sent her abroad, provided for her in every way, and--she rewarded him by taking this silly prejudice against his son, whom she ought to have had sense enough to know he expected her to marry." Bayard's pulse gave a leap, but his fine face made no sign. Professional imperturbability alone expressed itself. She paused one instant for breath. Then it occurred to her that perhaps she was broadly trenching on forbidden ground and revealing that which her husband had bidden her keep inviolate. Bayard read her like an open book, and promptly took the initiative before she could question. "And yet, Mrs. Forrest, would you have had her--a woman of such superior attainments and character--would your husband have had her marry a man to whom she could not look up?--whose character and, pardon me, whose habits were so, let us say, unsettled?" "Then she ought to have left before. I know she says she never dreamed of its being her uncle's plan or hope,--never dreamed that the young man was in earnest. It was all nonsense to say she couldn't marry a man whom she did not look up to and respect. He is only a year younger than she is, and lots of girls marry men younger than themselves,--especially when such a fortune was involved. Why! Mr. Courtlandt would have left them everything he had in the world, if she would only have consented." "But women form their own ideals, dear lady, and she may have had a man in view whom she did look up to, honor, and love. Is not that a reasonable theory?" And the doctor's eyes, full of sympathy and deference, watched his impulsive patient narrowly withal. How well he knew her! She fell instantly into the trap. "But she hadn't! I could forgive her easily if that were so, but she told the captain it was purely and simply that she could not and would not marry Philip Courtlandt or any man like him." "But I fancied from what--from various circumstances--that the young man was very dissipated--dangerously so, in fact. Would you counsel your sister to marry such a man?"