The words were hard and uncompromising. Mrs. Cameron, who, in the twilight, had sought and obtained access to the bedroom of the missing trustee’s daughter, stood over her with a gesture which was almost menacing. The difficulty she had met with in forcing her way upstairs against the wishes of Susan and the other frightened maidservants, in whose eyes she looked terrible in her wrath, had much increased her displeasure. She now longed to "have it out" with the only member of Mr. Anderson’s family within her reach, or, as she expressed it to Doris, to give her a "bit of her mind." It was not a nice mind, Doris knew, so far as gentleness, charity, and courtesy constitute niceness, and the poor girl shrank away from her visitor, burying her tear-stained face still deeper in the pillows. A pent-up sigh escaping as she did so might have appealed to a more tender-hearted woman, but only served to still further incense Mrs. Cameron, who, tossing her head with a muttered malediction, forthwith proceeded to disclose the real vulgarity and unkindness of her nature. "It’s no use sniffing and crying there, young woman," she said, "and it’s not a bit of good your playing the innocent, and pretending you knew nothing of what was going on. Your father is a thief and a scoundrel! Now what is the use of your sitting up, with that white face, and pointing to the door like a tragedy queen? I shall say what I’ve come to say, and no power on earth shall stop me. John Anderson, your father, has stolen my poor boy’s money, and wasted every penny of it! There is nothing left! Nothing! All has gone! Twenty-five thousand pounds were entrusted to your father by his dying friend Richard Cameron, my husband, who had unlimited faith in him, as had also Mr. Hamilton; and it’s all gone! There is nothing left! Nothing! _Nothing_! My poor boy is ruined, absolutely ruined! Just at the starting of his life, when he is doing so well at Oxford, with all his ambition----" She broke down for a moment, with something like a sob, but, suppressing it, frowned the more fiercely to hide the momentary weakness, "He has this blow hurled at him by one of the very men who, of all others, were appointed to protect his interests, and make everything smooth before him. It isn’t as if your father wasn’t paid for being acting executor, or trustee. My husband, who was always just"--Mrs. Cameron was one of those wives who abuse and quarrel with their husbands while they have them, but after their death wear perpetual mourning and lose no opportunity of sounding their praises--"left John Anderson a legacy of a hundred pounds, to repay him for any trouble the business of administering his estate might cause. Little did he think what a thief and rogue the man would turn out to be!" "Leave the room!" gasped poor Doris, sitting up and waving her hand frantically towards the door. Whatever her father had done, she could not listen to such abuse of him.