"She never said a word."

"Are you sure?"

"Perfectly. Except--yes--she _did_ say----"

It was coming back to her now.

"Do you mind telling me exactly what she said?"

"N--no. She made me promise that if I ever found things in you that I
didn't understand, or that I didn't like----"

"Well--what did she make you promise?"

"That I wouldn't be hard on you. Because, she said, you'd had such a
miserable life."

"Poor Edith! So that was the nearest she could get to it. Things you
didn't understand and didn't like!"

"I didn't know what she meant."

"Of course you didn't. Who could? But I'm sorry to say that Edith made me
pretty well believe you did."

He was silent a while, trying to fathom the reason of his sister's
strange duplicity. Apparently he gave it up.

"You can't be a brute to a poor little woman with a bad spine," said he;