"Both; and her manners are perfectly charming. She is just the girl that would be obnoxious to a rival."
"It is all fancy, I presume, on Mrs. Carleton's part. There is nothing between Miss Beauclerc and Sir Isaac?"
Frederick St. John broke into a laugh. "Sir Isaac loves her as he would a child of his own; and she venerates him as a father. There is no other sort of love between them, Mr. Pym."
Mr. Pym took a side glance at the speaker. Something in the tone had struck him that some one else might be a lover of Miss Beauclerc's, if Sir Isaac was not.
"Even allowing that Mrs. Carleton has been sane hitherto, and my suspicion a myth, it would never do for her to marry Sir Isaac," resumed Frederick. "You would say so if you knew my brother and his extreme sensitiveness. The very thought of his wife being liable to insanity would be to him perfectly horrible."
"It would be to most people," said the doctor.
"I think he must be told now. I have abstained from speaking out hitherto, from a fear that my motives might be misconstrued. My brother, a confirmed old bachelor, has brought me up to consider myself his heir; and it would look as though I were swayed by self-interest."
"I understand," said the surgeon. "But he must be saved from Mrs. Carleton."
"I cannot bring myself to think that he is in real danger; I believe still that he has no thought of marrying, and never will have. But Mrs. Carleton is undeniably attractive, and stranger things have been known."
"The better plan would be to lay the whole case before Sir Isaac. It need not be yourself. I should suggest Dr. Beauclerc. And then----"