"Well, Jean, you know what happened. I left you on the morning following, telling you to return to your father, to inform him of our marriage, assuring you that I should return very shortly."
Again the judge was silent for some time. He seemed to be fighting with himself, seemed to be unable to express the thoughts which filled his mind.
"My guardian's name," he went on, "was Bolitho. As I told you, he had always been fond of me from a boy, and he was more to me than most fathers are to their sons. When I returned to him late that night, for, as you know, I caught an express train from Carlisle early in the morning and travelled continuously for fourteen hours, I found him eagerly awaiting me, and I thought he looked pale and ill. In spite of my protests, he would not wait until the morning before telling me what he had in his mind. Ever since he had discovered the truth about my affairs, it seemed that he had been making plans about me, and it was not long before I discovered them. As I told you, he hated the name of Graham, because my father had robbed him of the woman he loved, and he told me that he wanted me to take his name and become his son. On condition that I would do this, he would make my future secure and leave me what fortune he possessed. But there was something more than this, and here comes the story of my fall."
Paul's mother moved slightly in her chair, and then, if possible, her form became more rigid than before, but she did not speak.
"Are you sure you can bear this?" asked the judge. "Are you strong enough?"
"I'm not strong enough to leave this room until I know," replied the woman, and each of them realised that every nerve in her body was in tension, and that her suffering, although not physical, defied all description.
"He told me something else," went on the judge. "He told me that he had lately visited his doctor, who had informed him that it was essential to his life for him to go to some Southern land, and suggested New Zealand or Australia, for at least two years. He said that a lengthy sea voyage was first of all absolutely necessary, and that then a residence for a considerable time in a suitable climate must be a condition of his life. If he did not do this he would die.
"You can see what this meant," continued the judge, for the first time looking at Mary and Paul, "and his words almost staggered me. But this was not all. He had promised to care for a widowed sister's child, a girl who was at that time about eighteen years of age; promised her, too, the protection which she had never known from her father. She was called Mary Tregony, and, like the Bolithos, the Tregonys are among the oldest families in England. Of course, I had known her all her life, and in a way looked upon her as a sister."
"'You like Mary?' said my uncle to me.
"And I had to confess that I did, although I only thought of her as a kind of sister.