“Oh, well,” he said at last, evading the point at issue, “it’s all ancient history now. Let it go. There’s never anything gained by digging up the dry bones of the past.” Jean’s mouth set itself in a mutinous line of determination. “Please tell me, Blaise,” she reiterated. “As it is something which concerns my father and a woman I shall probably be meeting fairly often in the future, I think I have a right to know about it.” He shrugged his shoulders resignedly. “Very well--if you insist. But I don’t think you’ll be any happier for knowing.” He paused. “Still inflexible?” She bent her head. “Quite”--firmly--“whatever it is, I’d rather know it.” “On your own head be it, then.” He seemed trying to infuse a lighter element into the conversation, as though hoping to minimise the effect of what he had to tell her. “It was just this--that your father and Judith Burke were engaged to be married at the time he met your mother, and that--well, to make a long story short, he ran away with Miss Mavory on the day fixed for his wedding with Judith.” A dead silence followed the disclosure. Then Jean uttered a low cry of dismay. “My father did that? Are you sure?” “Quite sure.” Tormarin could see that the story had distressed her. Her eyes showed hurt and bewildered like those of a child who has met with a totally unexpected rebuff. “Don’t take it like that!” he urged hastily. “After all, It was nothing so terrible. You look as though he had broken every one of the ten commandments”--smiling. Jean smiled back rather wanly. “I don’t know that I should worry very much if he had--in some circumstances. But--don’t you see?--it was so cruel, so horribly selfish!” “You’ve got to remember two things in justification----” “_Justification?_”--expressively. “There wasn’t any. There couldn’t be.” “Well, excuse, then, if you like. One thing is that Jacqueline Mavory was one of the most beautiful of women, and the other, that your father’s engagement to Judith had really been more or less engineered by their respective parents--adjoining properties, friends of long standing, and so on. It was no love-match--on his side.” “But on her wedding-day!”--pitifully. “Oh! Poor Judith!” Tormarin smiled a trifle cynically. “That was the root of the trouble. It was Judith’s pride that was hurt--as well as her heart. She married Major Craig not long after, and I believe they were really fond of one another and comparatively happy. But she has never forgiven Peterson from that day to this. And you, being Jacqueline Mavory’s daughter, will come in for the residue of her bitterness. Unless”--ironically--“you can make friends with her.” “I shall try to,” said Jean simply. “Is Major Craig living now?” “No. He died out in India, and after his death Judith came back to England. She has lived at Willow Ferry with her brother, Geoffrey Burke, ever since.”