"Tell me what it is about Aunt Caroline."
"She is not my mother any more, Cousin Antony, nor father's wife either."
He waited. Bella's tone was low and embarrassed.
"I don't know how to tell it. She had a lovely voice, Cousin Antony."
"She had indeed, Bella."
"Well," slowly commented the young girl, "she took music lessons from a teacher who sang in the opera, and I used to hear them at it until I nearly lost my mind sometimes. I hate music—I mean that kind, Cousin Antony."
"Well," he interrupted, impatient to hear the dénouement. "What then, honey?"
"One night at dinner-time mother didn't come home; but she is often late, and we waited, and then went on without her.... She never came home, and no one ever told me anything, not even old Ann. Father said I was not to speak my mother's name again. And I never have, until now, to you."
Fairfax took in his Bella's hands that turned the little rolled kid gloves; they were cold. He bent his eyes on her. Young as she was, she saw there and recognized compassion and human understanding, qualities which, although she hardly knew their names, were sympathetic to her. He bent his eyes on her.
"Honey," Fairfax said, "you have spoken your mother's name in the right place. Don't judge her, Bella!"