ready to judge me, have they been any better?"

"My father was a scoundrel, although I loved him and would love him now
if he came back--but he was just as bad as they make 'em and there's no
use in denying it. He'd tell you so himself if he were here. He broke my
poor mother's heart and killed her. I don't remember her--I was no age
at all when she died--but I've got an old picture of her, kept it always
with me; she must have been rather like my cousin Rachel, who was here
the other day----"

_Lizzie_ watched his face. There had left him now all that hint of
insincerity, of exaggeration that she had noticed when he had talked
before. She knew that he was telling her now absolutely the truth as he
saw it.

"She died and after that I was taken about Europe with my father. We
lived in almost every capital in Europe--Berlin, Paris, Rome, Vienna,
everywhere. Sometimes we were rich, sometimes poor. Sometimes we knew
the very best people, sometimes the very worst. Sometimes I'd go to
school for a little, then I'd suddenly be taken away. My father was
splendid to me then; the best-looking man you ever saw, tall, broad,
carried himself magnificently--the finest man in Europe. I only knew,
bit by bit, the things that he used to do. It was cards most of the
time, and he taught me to play, of course, as he taught me to do
everything else.

"When I was eighteen my eyes were opened--I tried to leave him--But I
loved him and I verily believe that I was the only human being in the
world that he cared for. Anyway, he died of fever and general
dissipation when I had just come of age, and I came home to England
with a little money and great hopes of putting myself right with the
world."

As he had talked to her he had gathered confidence; her silence was, in
some way to him, reassuring and comforting. Some people have the gift of
listening without words so warmly, with such eloquence that they
reassure and console as no speech could ever do. This was Lizzie's gift,
and Breton, depending, more than most human beings, upon the protection
of his fellows, gathered courage.

"My father had always taught me to hate my grandmother. He painted her
to me as I have since found her--remorseless, eaten up with pride,
cruel. I came home to England, meaning to lead a new life, to be
decent--as I'd always wanted to be.

"Well, they wouldn't have me, not one of them. They pretended to at
first; and my Uncle John at least was sincere, I think,