"I speak strongly because I feel strongly, Ronald! I don't expect you to share my feelings in this matter, but I do expect you to have some of your own, although you may not show them. For God's sake cast aside for a few minutes that cloak of frost in which you always shroud yourself, and let us talk as father and son about one who is daughter to the one and sister to the other!" Ronald looked up in surprise. He had never seen his father so much excited before. "I have no doubt about this," continued Kilsyth. "I have hoped against hope, and I have shut my eyes against what I have seen, hoping they might be fancies; and my ears against what I have heard, hoping they might be lies. But I can befool myself in this manner no longer. Ah! to think of my darling thus--to think of my darling thus!" Tears started to the old man's eyes, and he smote fiercely with his stick upon the ground. "If you are really persuaded of this, sir," said Ronald, "it is our duty to take immediate measures. Mr. Caird must be taught--" "Who brought him to our house?" asked Kilsyth in a storm of passion; "or rather--not that--but when he was brought, who backed him up and encouraged him in every way? You, Ronald! you--you--you! By your advice he was permitted free access to the house, was constantly thrown in Madeleine's company, and gave the world to understand that he was going to marry her. I postponed the settling of the engagement once; but the second time, when--when I fancied that the child might have had some other views--might have formed some other fancy--you persuaded me to agree, and--" "You should apportion the blame properly, sir," said Ronald in his coldest tones. "I did not introduce Caird to your house, nor was I the principal advocate of his cause." "You're quite right, Ronald, quite right--and I've been hasty and passionate and inconsiderate, I know; but if you knew how utterly heartbroken I am--" "I think, with regard to Mr. Caird," interrupted Ronald, "the best plan will be--" "No, no; not Caird now--leave him for the present; afterwards we'll do for him. Now about Maddy--nothing but about Maddy--and not about her dulness, or anything of that kind, nor--worse, much worse--you recollect--no, you didn't know; I think you weren't there--what Wilmot, Dr. Wilmot, said to me at Kilsyth about her chest? He told me that one of her lungs was threatened--that the lungs were her weak point; and he asked me whether any of our family had suffered from such disease." "Well, sir," said Ronald, anxiously now.