“We won’t call it a painful matter,” he began. “Let us say it’s a matter of domestic anxiety. Blanche--” Lady Lundie emitted a faint scream, and put her hand over her eyes. “_Must_ you?” cried her ladyship, in a tone of touching remonstrance. “Oh, Sir Patrick, _must_ you?” “Yes. I must.” Lady Lundie’s magnificent eyes looked up at that hidden court of human appeal which is lodged in the ceiling. The hidden court looked down at Lady Lundie, and saw--Duty advertising itself in the largest capital letters. “Go on, Sir Patrick. The motto of woman is Self-sacrifice. You sha’n’t see how you distress me. Go on.” Sir Patrick went on impenetrably--without betraying the slightest expression of sympathy or surprise. “I was about to refer to the nervous attack from which Blanche has suffered this morning,” he said. “May I ask whether you have been informed of the cause to which the attack is attributable?” “There!” exclaimed Lady Lundie with a sudden bound in her chair, and a sudden development of vocal power to correspond. “The one thing I shrank from speaking of! the cruel, cruel, cruel behavior I was prepared to pass over! And Sir Patrick hints on it! Innocently--don’t let me do an injustice--innocently hints on it!” “Hints on what, my dear Madam?” “Blanche’s conduct to me this morning. Blanche’s heartless secrecy. Blanche’s undutiful silence. I repeat the words: Heartless secrecy. Undutiful silence.” “Allow me for one moment, Lady Lundie--” “Allow _me,_ Sir Patrick! Heaven knows how unwilling I am to speak of it. Heaven knows that not a word of reference to it escaped _my_ lips. But you leave me no choice now. As mistress of the household, as a Christian woman, as the widow of your dear brother, as a mother to this misguided girl, I must state the facts. I know you mean well; I know you wish to spare me. Quite useless! I must state the facts.” Sir Patrick bowed, and submitted. (If he had only been a bricklayer! and if Lady Lundie had not been, what her ladyship unquestionably was, the strongest person of the two!) “Permit me to draw a veil, for your sake,” said Lady Lundie, “over the horrors--I can not, with the best wish to spare you, conscientiously call them by any other name--the horrors that took place up stairs. The moment I heard that Blanche was ill I was at my post. Duty will always find me ready, Sir Patrick, to my dying day. Shocking as the whole thing was, I presided calmly over the screams and sobs of my step-daughter. I closed my ears to the profane violence of her language. I set the necessary example, as an English gentlewoman at the head of her household. It was only when I distinctly heard the name of a person, never to be mentioned again in my family circle, issue (if I may use the expression) from Blanche’s lips that I began to be really alarmed. I said to my maid: ‘Hopkins, this is not Hysteria. This is a possession of the devil. Fetch the chloroform.’”