“ Yes, I do know; I know it too well. I know how differently you must feel about all that affects our family, and your own dignity as a young woman, before you could think of receiving secret addresses from Philip Wakem. If it was not disgusting to me in every other way, I should object to my sister’s name being associated for a moment with that of a young man whose father must hate the very thought of us all, and would spurn you. With any one but you, I should think it quite certain that what you witnessed just before my father’s death would secure you from ever thinking again of Philip Wakem as a lover. But I don’t feel certain of it with you; I never feel certain about anything with you . At one time you take pleasure in a sort of perverse self-denial, and at another you
