“And you know he was entrapped!” said Julius, roused to defend his brother.

“And by whom?” she said in accents of deep pain.

“I should have thought it just—­both by your poor sister and by him—­ to undo the wrong then wrought,” said Julius, “unless, indeed, you have some further cause for distrusting him?”

“No! no!” cried she.  “Oh, Julius!  I do it for his own good.  Your mother knows not what she wishes, in trying to entangle him again with me.”

“Lenore, will you tell me if anything in him besides that unhappy slip makes you distrust him?”

“I must tell the whole truth,” gasped the poor girl, as they walked along in the sound of the sea, the dark path here and there brightened by the gas-lights, “or you will think it is his fault!  Julius, I know more about my poor father than ever I did before.  I was a child when I lived here before, and then Camilla took all the management.  When we came to London, two months ago, I soon saw the kind of people he got round him for his comforters.  I knew how he spent his evenings.  It is second nature to him—­he can’t get put of it, I believe!  I persuaded him to come down here, thinking it a haven of peace and safety.  Alas!  I little knew what old habits there were to resume, nor what was the real reason Camilla brought us away after paying our debts.  I was a happy child then, when I only knew that papa was gone to his club.  Now I know that it is a billiard-room—­and that it is doing all the more harm because he is there—­and I see him with people whom he does not like me to speak to.  I don’t know whether I could get him away, and it would be as bad anywhere else.  I don’t think he can help it.  And he is often unwell; he can’t do without me when he has the gout, and I ought not to leave him to himself.  And then, if—­if we did marry and he lived with us in London, think what it would be for Frank to have such a set brought about him.  I don’t see how he could keep them off.  Or even an engagement bringing him down here—­or anywhere, among papa’s friends would be very bad for him.  I saw it in London, even with Camilla to keep things in check.”  She was almost choked with suppressed agony.

“I see,” said Julius, gravely and pitifully, “it would take a man of more age and weight than poor Frank to deal with the habits of a lifetime.  The risk is great.”

“And when I saw it,” added Eleonora, “I felt I must never, never bring him into it.  And how could I tell him?  Your mother does not know, or she could not wish it!”

“It is plain that in the present state of things you ought not to marry, and so far you are judging nobly,” said Julius; “but next comes the question—­how far it is well to make that day at the races the pretext?”

“Don’t call it a pretext,” said Lenore, quickly.  “I meant what I said a year ago, with all my soul.  Perhaps it was hasty, when poor Camilla drove me into saying I did not mean only an habitual gambler, but one who had ever betted.  And now, well as I know how cruelly she used that presumptuous vow of mine, and how she repented of it at last, still I feel that to fly in its face might be so wrong, that I should have no right to expect not to drag Frank down.”