'Hush! Poor Mr Haldane, dear,' said the mother, under her breath.
Then Norah burst into a great cry. 'Oh, who has done it—who has done it? It is a shame—it is a sin! He is so good.'
'My child,' said the doctor, with something like a sob, 'it is God who has done it. If it had been a man, we would have throttled him before he touched poor Stephen. Now, heaven help us! what can we do? I suppose it is God.'
'Maurice, don't speak so before the child,' said Robert from a corner.
'How can I help it?' he cried. 'If it was a man's doing, what could we say bad enough? Norah, little one, you don't know what I mean. Go back to your book.'
'Norah, go up-stairs and get dressed for dinner,' said Helen. 'But you cannot, you must not be right, doctor. Oh, say you are sometimes deceived. Things happen that you don't reckon on. It is not for his life?'
Dr Maurice shook his head. He looked after Norah regretfully as she went out of the room with the big book clasped in her arms.
'You might have let the child stay,' he said reproachfully. 'There was nothing that could have disturbed her in what I said.'
And then for a moment or two the sound of the fire flickering its light about, making sudden leaps and sudden downfalls like a living thing, was the only sound heard; and it was in this pensive silence, weighted and subdued by the neighbourhood of suffering, that the visitor suddenly introduced a subject so different. He said abruptly—
'I have to congratulate you on becoming a great man, Drummond. I don't know how you have done it. But this bank, I suppose, will make your fortune. I want to venture a little in it on my own account.'