She looked up surprised.
"Don't let your brother drink so much champagne!"
The colour rushed into Elizabeth's face. She drew herself up, conscious of sharp pain, but also of anger. A stranger, who had not yet known them ten days! But she met an expression on his face, timid and yet passionately resolved, which arrested her.
"I really don't know what you mean, Mr. Anderson!" she said proudly.
"I thought I had seen you anxious. I should be anxious if I were you," he went on hurriedly. "He has been ill, and is not quite master of himself. That is always the critical moment. He is a charming fellow--you must be devoted to him. For God's sake, don't let him ruin himself body and soul!"
Elizabeth was dumbfounded. The tears rushed into her eyes, her voice choked in her throat. She must, she would defend her brother. Then she thought of the dinner of the night before, and the night before that--of the wine bill at Winnipeg and Toronto. Her colour faded away; her heart sank; but it still seemed to her an outrage that he should have dared to speak of it. He spoke, however, before she could.
"Forgive me," he said, recovering his self-control. "I know it must seem mere insolence on my part. But I can't help it--I can't look on at such a thing, silently. May I explain? Please permit me! I told you"--his voice changed--"my mother and sisters had been burnt to death. I adored my mother. She was everything to me. She brought us up with infinite courage, though she was a very frail woman. In those days a farm in Manitoba was a much harder struggle than it is now. Yet she never complained; she was always cheerful; always at work. But--my father drank! It came upon him as a young man--after an illness. It got worse as he grew older. Every bit of prosperity that came to us, he drank away; he would have ruined us again and again, but for my mother. And at last he murdered her--her and my poor sisters!"
Elizabeth made a sound of horror.
"Oh, there was no intention to murder," said Anderson bitterly. "He merely sat up drinking one winter night with a couple of whisky bottles beside him. Then in the morning he was awakened by the cold; the fire had gone out. He stumbled out to get the can of coal-oil from the stable, still dazed with drink, brought it in and poured some on the wood. Some more wood was wanted. He went out to fetch it, leaving his candle alight, a broken end in a rickety candlestick, on the floor beside the coal-oil. When he got to the stable it was warm and comfortable; he forgot what he had come for, fell down on a bundle of straw, and went into a dead sleep. The candle must have fallen over into the oil, the oil exploded, and in a few seconds the wooden house was in flames. By the time I came rushing back from the slough where I had been breaking the ice for water, the roof had already fallen in. My poor mother and two of the children had evidently tried to escape by the stairway and had perished there; the two others were burnt in their beds."
"And your father?" murmured Elizabeth, unable to take her eyes from the speaker.