had been in French, but Masha the lady's-maid had lived five years' with a dressmaker from Paris, and she understood it all); that my mother had reproached my father with infidelity, with an intimacy with the young lady next door, that my father at first had defended himself, but afterwards had lost his temper, and he too had said something cruel, 'reflecting on her age,' which had made my mother cry; that my mother too had alluded to some loan which it seemed had been made to the old princess, and had spoken very ill of her and of the young lady too, and that then my father had threatened her. 'And all the mischief,' continued Philip, 'came from an anonymous letter; and who wrote it, no one knows, or else there 'd have been no reason whatever for the matter to have come out at all.'
'But was there really any ground,' I brought out with difficulty, while my hands and feet went cold, and a sort of shudder ran through my inmost being.
Philip winked meaningly. 'There was. There's no hiding those things; for all that your father was careful this time—but there, you see, he 'd, for instance, to hire a carnage or something . . . no getting on without servants, either.'
I dismissed Philip, and fell on to my bed. I
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