Miss Hastings looked slightly bewildered. Here was a very different pupil from the elegant, graceful daughters of Lady Castledine.
"I should, perhaps," continued Sir Oswald, "explain to you the peculiar position that my niece, Miss Pauline Darrell, has occupied."
His grand old face flushed, and his stately head was bowed, as though some of the memories that swept over him were not free from shame; and then, with a little gesture of his white hand, on which shone a large diamond ring, he said:
"There is no need for me to tell you, Miss Hastings, that the Darrells are one of the oldest families in England—ancient, honorable, and, I must confess, proud—very proud. My father, the late Sir Hildebert Darrell, was, I should say, one of the proudest and most reserved of men. He had but two children, myself and a daughter twelve years younger—my sister Felicia. I was educated abroad. It was one of my father's fancies that I should see many lands, that I should study men and women before settling down to my right position in the world; so that I knew but little of my sister Felicia. She was a child when I left home—the tragedy of her life had happened before I returned."
Again a great rush of color came over the pale, aristocratic face.
"I must apologize, Miss Hastings, for troubling you with these details, but unless you understand them you will not understand my niece. I cannot tell you how it happened, but it did so happen that while I was away my sister disgraced herself; she left home with a French artist, whom Sir Hildebert had engaged to renovate some choice and costly pictures at Darrell Court. How it came about I cannot say—perhaps there were excuses for her. She may have found home very dull—my father was harsh and cold, and her mother was dead. It may be that when the young artist told her of warm love in sunny lands she was tempted, poor child, to leave the paternal roof.
"My father's wrath was terrible; he pursued Julian L'Estrange with unrelenting fury. I believe the man would have been a successful artist but for my father, who had vowed to ruin him, and who never rested until he had done so—until he had reduced him to direst poverty—and then my sister appealed for help, and my father refused to grant it. He would not allow her name to be mentioned among us; her portrait was destroyed; everything belonging to her was sent away from Darrell Court.
"When I returned—in an interview that I shall never forget—my father threatened me not only with disinheritance, but with his curse, if I made any attempt to hold the least communication with my sister. I do not know that I should have obeyed him if I could have found her, but I did not even know what part of the world she was in. She died, poor girl, and I have no doubt that her death was greatly hastened by privation. My father told me of her death, also that she had left one daughter; he did more—he wrote to Julian L'Estrange, and offered to adopt his daughter on the one condition that he would consent never to see her or hold the least communication with her.
"The reply was, as you may imagine, a firm refusal and a fierce denunciation. In the same letter came a note, written in a large, childish hand:
"'I love my papa, and I do not love you. I will not come to live with you. You are a cruel man, and you helped to kill my dear mamma.'