“I’m afraid of that man,” he said, in a whispering, hissing tone. “Vicars, get me home; get me out of sight. He’s an officer. Vicars, I’m not safe with that man!” “Hold your tongue, can’t you, Mr. Dolff, till I get him away,” cried Vicars, pushing past. And in a moment the pair had disappeared within the mysterious door, which swung after them, noiseless, closing without a sound. Dolff was left, pale and threatening, with Meredith and his two sisters facing him. That they should know what he did not filled Dolff with a sort of frenzy; and yet how could he continue to say that he did not know? “I wish,” cried Julia, stamping her foot, “that you two who know such a lot would go away, and not speak to Dolff and me. You don’t belong to us--at least Charley Meredith doesn’t belong to us, and Gussy thinks more of him than of all of us together. Oh, Dolff, it only matters to you and me! I believe,” cried Julia, catching her brother’s arm, “that old madman’s our father, Dolff. I believe he is our father. It’s terrible, it’s odious, and I will never forgive mamma. Why isn’t he dead? as she said he was. Dolff--oh, don’t mind it so dreadfully! I don’t mind it so dreadfully: he’s only mad--and that’s not wicked after all.” Dolff pushed past them all to where his mother sat in that temple of brightness and comfort, in her chair. Everything that could be done for her convenience and consolation in her incapacity was about her. She sat there as in a sanctuary, the centre of the most peaceful house. And there she had sat for years with the air of knowing nothing different, fearing nothing, meeting every day that rose and every night that fell with the same serene composure--a woman with nothing to conceal, nothing to alarm her, occupied only with little cares of the family and sympathies with others, and the knitting with which she was always busy. To look at her, and to think of the burden that had been for so long upon her shoulders, unknown, undreamed of, was a problem beyond the reach of imagination. Never a line upon her brow, and all that mystery and misery behind. The room, usually so orderly, was a little disarranged to-night, the chairs pushed about anyhow, and one lying where it fell, which had been pushed over as Vicars led his patient out. And she had sat there patiently and listened to the voices in the hall, knowing that another encounter was taking place--knowing that her son was desperate, that he had it in him to be violent, that it was enough to touch that secret spring of madness which, for aught she could tell, the son of a mad father might have inherited. Perhaps, had she been scanned at that moment by any one more able to judge than Dolff, the signs of a conflict might have been seen in her eyes, but to Dolff she appeared precisely as she always was in her incredible calm. He placed himself in front of her with the air of an angry man demanding an explanation from his inferior. “Is that man my father?” he said.