"I wish I could believe that." She spoke bitterly. "It would simplify so much for me. I should be so thankful to believe it. It would help to excuse Bibby. I know he was weak in character; but he was so nervous and delicate as a child. Papa alarmed him. He demanded too much of him, and was stern and sarcastic because Bibby could not meet that demand. My brother did not go to a preparatory school, but at thirteen he was sent to Rugby. It was papa's old school, and he believed the traditions and atmosphere of it were calculated to induce the serious sense of moral and intellectual responsibility in which he thought Bibby deficient."
"Poor child!" Adrian murmured.
"Yes," she said; "I am thankful you understand and pity him. I know papa's purpose was Bibby's good, the improvement and development of his character; but the treatment was too severe. It did not brace him, but only broke his spirit. He was unaccustomed to associate with other boys. They frightened and bullied him. He was so miserable that at the beginning of his second term he ran away."
She waited a moment, struggling against rising emotion, her hands working again ball-and-socket fashion.
"It was all very dreadful. For nearly a week he was lost. We knew he could have very little money, for his allowance was small. Papa held economy to be a duty for the young. I think, next to mamma, I suffered most, for I always loved Bibby best—better than I did Margaret. I shall never forget that week. I suppose papa suffered, too, in his own way. He was very silent, and looked angry. Andrew Merriman traced Bibby to London and brought him home. Mamma pleaded to keep him for a time, but he was sent straight back to school. About six months later papa received a request to remove him. He was accused of taking money from another boy's locker. Nothing was actually proved, but suspicion clung to him, and as his general conduct was reported unsatisfactory, the authorities thought it better he should leave. Papa sent him abroad to a private school at Lausanne. He remained there three years, until he was seventeen. Papa refused to let him spend the holidays at home, so during the whole of that time we only saw him twice, when we were traveling."
The monotonous, colorless voice, the monotonous story of well-meaning, cold-blooded tyranny it narrated, got upon the listener's nerves. With difficulty he restrained explosive comment reflecting far from politely upon the so recently buried dead. He really could not sit still under the indignation it provoked in him. He got up, moved away and stood leaning his shoulder against the dark, polished woodwork of the eastern window, his back to the light. He thought it well the narrator should not see his expression too clearly.
"It is almost inconceivable," he said.
"I am not exaggerating, Cousin Adrian," Joanna returned, straining her eyes in the effort to fix them upon his face. "All these events in their consecutive order are stamped indelibly upon my memory."
"I am convinced you are not exaggerating, my dear cousin, and just on that very account it is the more inconceivable," Adrian declared.
"But in your present relation to us—to me—I feel you ought to know all about poor Bibby, all about our—my—family history. My duty is to place the facts before you. I should be guilty of great self-indulgence if I concealed anything from you in that connection," Joanna protested, with growing agitation. "I should do very wrong if, to spare myself pain, I deceived you."