"The woman's mad," cried Jessop. "Crazy with grief or drink, I suppose. I don't know what she means." "I'm not, I'm not, Mr Clive," cried the girl, bursting into a violent fit of weeping. "Lyddy," cried Jessop. "I don't care; I must, I will speak. He has promised to marry me again and again, and now that master is dying and he is going to be free to do as he likes, he is trying to pack me off--to send me home, and I'd sooner go and jump off the bridges at once." "Jessop!" cried Clive, "how can you be such a scoundrel?" "Scoundrel yourself!" shouted Jessop furiously. "The woman's an impostor; it's a hatched-up breach of promise case to get money--a fraud." "No, no, no," cried Lyddy wildly, as she flung herself at Clive's feet, and caught and clung to his hands. "It's true--all true. Dear Mr Clive, don't, don't you forsake me. Don't you turn against me now." "Doctor! you here!" cried Clive, as he became conscious of the fact that they were not alone; and he made a step to cross the room to where Doctor Praed was standing with his child's arm locked in his. But, at the first movement, Lyddy uttered a piteous cry, clung to him wildly, and suffered herself to be dragged over, and half lie sobbing hysterically on the carpet. "Yes, sir, I am here," said the Doctor gravely. "But my father?" cried Clive excitedly. "Is spared this fresh trouble, sir," said the Doctor coldly. "Dead!" cried Clive, in a voice fall of agony, and he turned to his brother. Jessop was drawing Janet's arm through his as she gazed with flashing eyes at her betrothed. "Come away," Jessop whispered. "Janet, dearest, this is no place for you." CHAPTER TWELVE. IN RUSSELL SQUARE. "But surely, Doctor, you don't believe I could be such a scoundrel?" "My dear Clive, I should be sorry to think ill of any one, but you see I am a student of man's nature." "Then you believe it?" "That you are a scoundrel, my dear boy? Oh, dear no; I think you one of the best of fellows, or I would not have allowed that engagement to take place; and as I said to Janet, we must be a bit lenient; there was every excuse." "What!" roared Clive, leaping from his seat in Doctor Praed's consulting-room the morning after his father's death. "Now, now, be calm, and listen to what I have to say." Clive sank back with his face flushed and hands clenched, while the Doctor continued gravely-- "She was hot-headed and angry as could be when I got her home. You see, my dear boy, women are different in their nerve forces to men. There had been a great drain upon her during the interview with your poor father, and then the sad surprise with that woman and the shock of your father's death combined were sufficient to completely disturb the nerve centres." Clive Reed looked at the Doctor, as though he would have liked to shake him, but he only waited. "I told her, as I have said, that she must not be too severe." Clive drew his breath hard.