Fred gave a hoarse cry, which ran along the whole corridor into his mother’s closed room, who heard it and trembled--and to Susie’s, who sat half desperate over her fire longing for her brother. Not for a moment did Fred doubt the news: it explained everything; but he fled from the creature of ill-omen, the woman who gave it, with a sense of hatred and rage, for which indeed there was no warrant so far as she was concerned. “This is your doing!” he cried with fantastic bitterness. Why should he hate Janet, and how could it be her doing? he asked himself afterwards. But at the moment it seemed to the distracted young man as if this old retainer was one of the Fates, the enemy, not the friend of the house. He would not wait to hear another word, but rushed upstairs and shut himself in his room, as if some evil thing had been at his heels. Married!--his mother, his father’s wife, the first authority of his life--the woman without reproach--mamma! With that last baby-cry the cup was filled. The young man flung himself upon his face on his bed. And what an unhappy house it was which the darkness held that night concealed in its outer mantle of peace! Unhappy without any cause, for there was no evil going to be done--no harm: so far as any of these troubled people knew. Mr. Wedderburn, who came “out” next day with an embarrassment not less than that of Mrs. Dalyell, was roused a little by the desperate self-repression with which Fred received the official announcement. “My boy,” he said, “it may vex you that there should be any change, but what we are doing is no wrong to you--nor to any man.” “I have not said it was,” said Fred sullenly. “No, you have not said it was--but you seem to think it’s an unpardonable step. It is nothing of the kind,” said Mr. Wedderburn, indignant. “The time will come when you will think fit to marry, and then your mother will be turned out of her house; and that will seem the most natural thing in the world. Why should she not have one by her side that will make her comfort his care? Your father would have wished it. She’s not a person to stand alone to fight with the world.” “She has her children.” “Her children! Susie, who will have a husband of her own as soon as the lad has enough to live on; and Alice, who will follow her sister’s example; and you--when are you here to keep your mother company? A month in the vacations when the house is full--and a marriage whenever it strikes your fancy, with her turned adrift. No, no, my young man! You may not like it, you may scorn both her and me for it. But that face!--as if you were wronged and shamed. Come, come, Fred, that’s not an air to put on with an old and faithful friend like me.” “I know you are a faithful friend,” cried the young man resentfully. “I never doubted you for a moment.”