"Very much. Tell me, Miss Gordon, what is your opinion of him?"
"I think he is a good man, doctor. Several times I have been under the necessity of testing his kindness of heart, and it has never failed me. Then look how good he is to poor Hilda. If she depended upon that selfish father of hers, how wretched she would be."
"Yet she appears to be more attached to her father than to Schwartz."
"I daresay," said Janet, somewhat cynically; "it is that frame of mind which created the proverb about virtue being its own reward. People who do most are thought least of, and it is your selfish person who gets all the love and the praise. Look at my own case. All my life I have put myself aside for Rudolph and Laura; yet they think nothing of me."
"They say they do."
"Mere lip-service!" exclaimed Miss Gordon; "they would not do me a good turn however little trouble it might be. Laura is grateful to me now, because she is yet in danger, and I stand by her; but when all is well, she will think nothing of my services. As for Rudolph, he would borrow my last sixpence, and see me dying of starvation without returning so much as a single penny. Oh, I am under no disillusion about my own folk, doctor! What I do, I do from a sense of duty."
"With regard to your sister I can say nothing, Miss Gordon, as I do not know her sufficiently well; but Zirknitz--well, he is a thoroughly bad lot, and would sell his nearest and dearest at a price."
Janet demurred. "I cannot believe that he is so wicked as that!"
"But he is, and he proved it to me only the other day. He told Busham all about your impersonation of Mrs. Moxton; betrayed all your schemes and plans while you were fighting single-handed against overwhelming odds; and this because Busham paid him. Now, thinking Mrs. Moxton will recover her husband's fortune--for I told him that the real will still existed--he has betrayed all Busham's secret doings to me. What do you think of him now?"
"He is a scoundrel! I will never speak to him again. Oh, doctor, if you only knew what I have done for that man. I knew he was heartless and selfish, but I did not think he was wicked."