“Orphan! what do you mean? Who on earth talked to you about an orphan?” Isa felt—for she dared not look up—that her brother’s eyes were keenly scrutinising her face.
“Better have the whole truth out at once,” thought poor Isa, who, in her nervousness, was emptying the milk-jug into the tea-pot. “The fact is, dear Gaspar,” she said, speaking with rapidity and a sensation of breathlessness, “I have been anxious for a long time to talk to you about some words uttered by our beloved father a very, very short time before we lost him. When he was almost too ill to speak, he said”—Isa pressed her forehead as if to collect her thoughts—“he said, ‘Gaspar—you will be with him—the Orissa—not her money lost—tell him from me;’ the dear lips had not power to finish the sentence.”
“Did my father say anything more than these words?” asked Gaspar, who saw from the quivering of Isa’s lashes and the trembling of her lip that she at least attached some importance to the fragmentary message.
Isa pressed her hands very tightly together; she could hardly articulate the broken sentences—“He said, ‘something wrong—he should deal fairly by that orphan’—I can remember no more.”
THE CONVERSATION AT BREAKFAST.
Gaspar rose abruptly from his seat and walked to the window. Isa felt the brief silence which followed almost unendurable, and yet was thankful that she had been enabled to speak out the whole truth at last. After a few seconds Gaspar returned to his seat, and with a rapid—Isa fancied a slightly tremulous utterance—thus addressed his sister:—
“Isa, your ears deceived you—your memory is at fault—or—or there was a wandering of mind at the last. You shall know exactly how the case lies. A young lady, known to my father and myself, had some thousands of pounds which she wished to invest, four years ago, during my short visit to England. My father was consulted on the business. There was a sudden demand for a particular kind of goods in the West Indies; money invested in them might double itself if no time were lost; the girl was eager to increase her property—natural enough,—I was employed in making the arrangement—ship went down—goods uninsured—she had staked her property, and lost it. This was no fault of mine; you might blame the captain or the crew, or the winds and the waves; I was never blamed by Cora Madden herself.”
“Cora Madden!” ejaculated Isa.
“You know the whole truth now,” said Gaspar; “let us never come on the subject again.”