“I feel it to be my duty--my painful duty--to speak very seriously to you about your extraordinary behaviour in connecting yourself with--a--law-breakers and incendiaries and--a--persons of disreputable character. I believe you to have been, perhaps, more foolish than depraved--a----” He paused. “Yes?” Arthur said again. “Now, I do not wish to be hard on you,” James went on, softening a little in spite of himself before the weary hopelessness of Arthur's manner. “I am quite willing to believe that you have been led away by bad companions, and to take into account your youth and inexperience and the--a--a--imprudent and--a--impulsive character which you have, I fear, inherited from your mother.” Arthur's eyes wandered slowly to his mother's portrait and back again, but he did not speak. “But you will, I feel sure, understand,” James continued, “that it is quite impossible for me to keep any longer in my house a person who has brought public disgrace upon a name so highly respected as ours.” “Yes?” Arthur repeated once more. “Well?” said Julia sharply, closing her fan with a snap and laying it across her knee. “Are you going to have the goodness to say anything but 'Yes,' Arthur?” “You will do as you think best, of course,” he answered slowly, without moving. “It doesn't matter much either way.” “Doesn't--matter?” James repeated, aghast; and his wife rose with a laugh. “Oh, it doesn't matter, doesn't it? Well, James, I hope you understand now how much gratitude you may expect in that quarter. I told you what would come of showing charity to Papist adventuresses and their----” “Hush, hush! Never mind that, my dear!” “It's all nonsense, James; we've had more than enough of this sentimentality! A love-child setting himself up as a member of the family--it's quite time he did know what his mother was! Why should we be saddled with the child of a Popish priest's amourettes? There, then--look!” She pulled a crumpled sheet of paper out of her pocket and tossed it across the table to Arthur. He opened it; the writing was in his mother's hand, and was dated four months before his birth. It was a confession, addressed to her husband, and with two signatures. Arthur's eyes travelled slowly down the page, past the unsteady letters in which her name was written, to the strong, familiar signature: “Lorenzo Montanelli.” For a moment he stared at the writing; then, without a word, refolded the paper and laid it down. James rose and took his wife by the arm. “There, Julia, that will do. Just go downstairs now; it's late, and I want to talk a little business with Arthur. It won't interest you.” She glanced up at her husband; then back at Arthur, who was silently staring at the floor. “He seems half stupid,” she whispered. When she had gathered up her train and left the room, James carefully shut the door and went back to his chair beside the table. Arthur sat as before, perfectly motionless and silent.