For a few days no reply came; then he received such a strange, unhappy, and desperate letter, that, astonished, alarmed, and apprehensive, he went straight to his sister, who had run up to town for the day from Silverside, and who had telephoned him to take her somewhere for luncheon.

Nina appeared very gay and happy and youthful in her spring plumage, but she exclaimed impatiently at his tired and careworn pallor; and when a little later they were seated tete-a-tete in the rococo dining-room of a popular French restaurant, she began to urge him to return with her, insisting that a week-end at Silverside was what he needed to avert physical disintegration.

“What is there to keep you in town?” she demanded, breaking bits from the stick of crisp bread.  “The children have been clamouring for you day and night, and Eileen has been expecting a letter—­You promised to write her, Phil—!”

“I’m going to write to her,” he said impatiently; “wait a moment, Nina—­don’t speak of anything pleasant or—­or intimate just now—­because—­because I’ve got to bring up another matter—­something not very pleasant to me or to you.  May I begin?”

“What is it, Phil?” she asked, her quick, curious eyes intent on his troubled face.

“It is about—­Alixe.”

“What about her?” returned his sister calmly.

“You knew her in school—­years ago.  You have always known her—­”

“Yes.”

“You—­did you ever visit her?—­stay at the Varians’ house?”

“Yes.”

“In—­in her own home in Westchester?”

“Yes.”

There was a silence; his eyes shifted to his plate; remained fixed as he said: 

“Then you knew her—­father?”

“Yes, Phil,” she said quietly, “I knew Mr. Varian.”

“Was there anything—­anything unusual—­about him—­in those days?”

“Have you heard that for the first time?” asked his sister.

He looked up:  “Yes.  What was it, Nina?”

She became busy with her plate for a while; he sat rigid, patient, one hand resting on his claret-glass.  And presently she said without meeting his eyes: 

“It was even farther back—­her grandparents—­one of them—­” She lifted her head slowly—­“That is why it so deeply concerned us, Phil, when we heard of your marriage.”

“What concerned you?”

“The chance of inheritance—­the risk of the taint—­of transmitting it.  Her father’s erratic brilliancy became more than eccentricity before I knew him.  I would have told you that had I dreamed that you ever could have thought of marrying Alixe Varian.  But how could I know you would meet her out there in the Orient!  It was—­your cable to us was like a thunderbolt. . . .  And when she—­she left you so suddenly—­Phil, dear—­I feared the true reason—­the only possible reason that could be responsible for such an insane act.”