"It is a great pity," he said, with a certain stiffness--did it unconsciously mark the difference between her and his legitimate kindred?--"that my sister Lady Blanche and her daughter cannot be with us."
"They are in Italy?"
"At Florence. My niece has had an attack of diphtheria. She could neither travel nor could her mother leave her."
Then pausing in the hall, he added in a low voice, and with some embarrassment:
"My father has told you, I believe, of the addition he has made to his will?"
Julie drew back.
"I neither asked for it nor desired it," she said, in her coldest and clearest voice.
"That I quite understand," said Lord Uredale. "But--you cannot hurt him by refusing."
She hesitated.
"No. But afterwards--I must be free to follow my own judgment."