'I have.'
'And you have broken the truth to her; explained to her the fearful position in which she stands?'
'I have not.'
'Gurwood!' said Humphrey Statham, taking a pace backward, and looking steadily at his friend. 'Is this the way in which you have discharged your mission? Did you not undertake--'
'Wait and hear me before you condemn,' cried Martin, raising his hand in appeal. 'I am as weak as water--no one knows that better than myself--but I had made up my mind to go through with this duty, and I would have done so, had it not been for circumstances against which I could not struggle. Have you never heard me mention the name of Madame Du Tertre?'
'Madame Du Tertre?' repeated Humphrey, somewhat astonished at what he imagined to be his friend's sudden branching off from the subject. 'No, I have never heard the name.'
'She is a Frenchwoman, who, through some strange influence, I never knew exactly what, has been acting as my mother's companion for some little time, living in the house in Great Walpole-street, and being, in fact, half friend, half servant--you comprehend the position?'
Humphrey Statham bowed his head in acquiescence.
'She is a woman of great strength of character--little as I know of the world I am able to see that--and has not merely obtained a vast influence over my mother, but, as I now believe, she has made herself thoroughly acquainted with most of our private affairs.'
'You don't mean to say that she knows--?'