Where have you been?"
I told her the truth as honestly as I have told it here.
The color deepened in my mother's face.
She looked at me, and spoke to me with a severity which was rare indeed in my experience of her.
"Must I remind you, for the first time in your life, of what is due to your mother?" she asked.
"Is it possible that you expect me to visit a woman, who, by her own confession—"
"I expect you to visit a woman who has only to say the word and to be your daughter-in-law," I interposed.
"Surely I am not asking what is unworthy of you, if I ask that?"
My mother looked at me in blank dismay.
"Do you mean, George, that you have offered her marriage?"
"Yes."
"And she has said No?"
"She has said No, because there is some obstacle in her way.
I have tried vainly to make her explain herself.
She has promised to confide everything to you."
The serious nature of the emergency had its effect.
My mother yielded.
She handed me the little ivory tablets on which she was accustomed to record her engagements.
"Write down the name and address," she said resignedly.
"I will go with you," I answered, "and wait in the carriage at the door.
I want to hear what has passed between you and Mrs. Van Brandt the instant you have left her."
"Is it as serious as that, George?"
"Yes, mother, it is as serious as that."
CHAPTER XV. THE OBSTACLE BEATS ME.
HOW long was I left alone in the carriage at the door of Mrs. Van Brandt's lodgings?
Judging by my sensations, I waited half a life-time.
Judging by my watch, I waited half an hour.
When my mother returned to me, the hope which I had entertained of a happy result from her interview with Mrs. Van Brandt was a hope abandoned before she had opened her lips.
I saw, in her face, that an obstacle which was beyond my power of removal did indeed stand between me and the dearest wish of my life.
"Tell me the worst," I said, as we drove away from the house, "and tell it at once."
"I must tell it to you, George," my mother answered, sadly, "as she told it to me.
She begged me herself to do that.
'We must disappoint him,' she said, 'but pray let it be done as gently as possible.'
Beginning in those words, she confided to me the painful story which you know already—the story of her marriage.
From that she passed to her meeting with you at Edinburgh, and to the circumstances which have led her to live as she is living now.
This latter part of her narrative she especially requested me to repeat to you.
Do you feel composed enough to hear it now? Or would you rather wait?"
"Let me hear it now, mother; and tell it, as nearly as you can, in her own words."
"I will repeat what she said to me, my dear, as faithfully as I can.
After speaking of her father's death, she told me that she had only two relatives living.
'I have a married aunt in Glasgow, and a married aunt in London,' she said.
'When I left Edinburgh, I went to my aunt in London.
She and my father had not been on good terms together; she considered that my father had neglected her.
But his death had softened her toward him and toward me.
She received me kindly, and she got me a situation in a shop.
I kept my situation for three months, and then I was obliged to leave it.'"
My mother paused.
I thought directly of the strange postscript which Mrs. Van Brandt had made me add to the letter that I wrote for her at the Edinburgh inn.
In that case also she had only contemplated remaining in her employment for three months' time.
"Why was she obliged to leave her situation?" I asked.