Mr. Scarse drooped his head. "Julia? Ah, she is still bitter against poor Robert!"
"Robert?--who is he?"
"My twin brother, Brenda--your uncle!"
"Oh!" Brenda threw up her hands in surprise. "And I never knew."
"No one knows but your aunt and myself, and she denies him--and Van Zwieten knows."
"Oh, father! How can he know?"
"I told him," replied Mr. Scarse, quietly. "I was forced to tell him, lest he should imagine the truth to be worse than it is. And he might have got me into trouble--and not only me, but poor, mad Robert."
"Mad! Is my uncle mad?"
"Yes, poor soul. Now I will tell you what made him mad--the same story that I was forced to tell Van Zwieten."
Brenda looked anxiously at her father and placed her hand in his. Grasping it hard, he related the sad family history he had told the Dutchman, suppressing nothing, extenuating nothing. Brenda listened in profound silence. At times her eyes flashed, at times she wept, but never a word did she say. When her father had finished her sorrow burst forth.