"It's a mystery!" ejaculated Julia, blankly. "His letter to mother was everything that a letter could be. He laughs at himself ever so for going away on a mad errand, suggests that she should join him in a few days' time, and signs himself, 'till we meet, your fond and devoted Alfred.'" "I tell you what it is, Ju," said Maudie, dropping her young married woman air and becoming Maudie Whittaker once more, "I'm sorry to say it because he's my father, but between you and me, daddy's a regular bad lot." "It does seem so," said Julia, "and the curious part of it is that he looks so respectable. Mother won't believe it, you know. I was talking to her only to-day, she won't believe a word against him." "Well, so much the better for her, that's what Harry says, but we came to tell her--" "Not to tell her--?" "Oh no, I wouldn't tell her for the world. Let her go on believing in him as long as she can; the awakening will come soon enough." "Then what did you come for?" asked Julia, practical as usual. "My dear, I thought if daddy had gone off and perhaps left mother a letter to say that he was never coming back, she would want somebody to stand by her--and Harry and I are prepared to do that." "And where do I come in?" asked Julia, a little scornfully. "Oh, Ju, darling, you are always the practical common-sense one, you are a tower of strength, and many are the times I have leaned upon you; but if the worst had happened you might have been too stunned yourself to help mother very much. I think a woman needs a man at such a crisis of her life." "There isn't going to be any crisis," said Julia, quite prosaically, "there isn't going to be any crisis. But it was nice of you to come, and I do think you and Harry are two dear things. There's an explanation to all this. There's nothing of the real bad lot about daddy, and as for mother--there's no doubt about it, he worships her. Don't tell me that when a man is tired of a woman he brings home dark sables without so much as a hint that they will be welcome--it isn't human nature, at all events it isn't man nature." CHAPTER XXXIII GRASP YOUR NETTLE There is a wide difference between grasping your nettle and rushing in where angels fear to tread. Several days had gone by and still the anxiously-looked-for summons had not arrived from Alfred Whittaker to his wife. To outward seeming Regina was as calm in the face of this new development of events as if no trace of cloud had ever arisen to come between her and her noble Alfred, but in her heart of hearts she watched every post with an anxiety that was absolutely at fever heat. At night, poor soul, she seemed to have given up sleeping, and Regina was a woman who needed, and had always taken, a fixed amount of time in bed--when I say that I mean of actual, sound, solid sleep. She was one of those persons who, docked of sleep, show the signs of wear and tear with fatal rapidity.