Then the Judge put out his arms and held the girl close to him, so that I knew a fresh love for her had come into his heart. Perhaps on account of it he had more fear than ever. One day he brought home a book in a green cover; I read the words on the back--"Some Aspects of Heredity." Nor was that book the last of its kind he bought or sat reading till late at night, with his pipe held in the crook of his long fingers and his forehead drawn down into a scowl. I could tell he was wondering about the mystery of that which goes creeping down from mother or father to son and daughter, and on and on, like a starving mongrel dog that slinks along after a person, dropping in the grass when a person speaks cross to it, running away when a person turns and chases it, and then, when it has been forgotten, a person looks around and there it is again, skulking close behind. "And then," as Madame Welstoke used to say, folding her hands, "if you call it 'Heredity,' it knows its name and wags its tail!" One would have said that the Judge always expected that some creature like that would crawl up behind the girl. I used to imagine, when Julianna came into the room, that he looked over her shoulder or behind her, as if he expected to see it there with its grinning face. And, moreover, I've seen him look at the soft, fine skin of her round forearms, or the little curls of hair at the back of her neck, or the lids of her eyes, when they were moist in summer, or the half moons on the nails of her fingers, as if he might be able to see there some sign of her birth or the first bruises made by this thing called "Heredity," that would say, if it could talk, "Come. Don't you feel the thrill of my touch? You belong not to yourself, my dear, but to me." I knew. And as the girl came into womanhood, and he saw, perhaps, that I was watching her, too, I think he longed for sympathy and wanted the relief of speech. Finally he spoke. It was late one night and he had his hand on the stair rail, when he heard me locking the window in the hall. He turned quickly. "Margaret," he whispered. "Yes, sir," I answered. "Thank God, she is a woman and not a man," he said, out of a clear sky; "for a woman is better protected against herself." For a moment he seemed to be thinking; then he looked at the floor. "Does Julianna ever take a glass of sherry or claret when I am not at dinner?" he asked. "I thought it had gone quickly." "Why, no!" I replied. He nodded the way he did when he was satisfied--the way a toyshop animal's head nods--less and less until it stops. "I'm sorry I asked," he said. "Good-night."