It was a painful visit, and on her return home Irene
talked of it to her father.
"Something wretched is going on of which we don't know," she
declared. "Anyone could see it. Olga is keeping some miserable
secret, and her mother looks as if she were being driven mad."
"That ruffian, I suppose," said the Doctor. "What can he be doing?"
The next day he saw his sister. He came home with a gloomy
countenance, and called Irene into his study.
"You were right. Something very bad indeed is going on, so bad that
I hardly like to speak to you about it. But secrecy is impossible;
we must use our common sense--Hannaford is bringing a suit for
divorce."
Irene was so astonished that she merely gazed at her father, waiting
his explanation. Under her eyes Dr. Derwent suffered an increase of
embarrassment, which tended to relieve itself in anger.
"It will kill her," he exclaimed, with a nervous gesture. "And then,
if justice were done, that scoundrel would be hanged!"
"You mean her husband?"
"Yes. Though I'm not sure that there isn't another who deserves the
name. She wants to see you, Irene, and I think you must go at once.
She says she has things to tell you that will make her mind easier.
I'm going to send a nurse to be with her: she mustn't be left alone.
It's lucky I went to-day. I won't answer for what may happen in
four-and-twenty hours. Olga isn't much use, you know, though she's
doing what she can.
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