"Have you had a telegram, too, then?"

"No. But Siddle has had one, eh? Don't be vexed. I'm not tricking you
into revealing post office secrets. I knew she was dying, and, when I saw
your father take a message to the chemist's shop I simply made an
accurate guess.... Now, I'm going to scare you, purposely and of malice
aforethought, because I want you to be a good little girl, and obey
orders. Mrs. Siddle, senior, now happily deceased, was an epileptic
lunatic of a peculiarly dangerous type. She suffered from what is classed
by the doctors as _furor epilepticus_, a form of spasmodic insanity not
inconsistent with a high degree of bodily vigor and long periods of
apparently complete mental saneness. Now, if I were not speaking to one
who has shared her father's studies in bee-life, I would not introduce
the subject of heredity. But _you_ know, Miss Martin, that such racial
characteristics are transmitted, or transmissible, I should say, by sex
opposites. Thus, an epileptic mother is more likely to give her taint to
a son than to a daughter.... Yes, I mean all that, and more," he went on,
seeing the look of horror, not unmixed with fear, in Doris's eyes. "There
must be no more irritating of Siddle, or playing on his feelings--by you,
at any rate. Treat him gently. If he insists on making love to you, be as
firm as you like in a non-committal way. I mean, by that, an entire
absence on your part of any suggestion that you are repulsing him because
of a real or supposed preference for any other man."

"Do you want me to believe that he is liable to attack me?" demanded the
girl, her naturally courageous spirit coming to her aid.

"I do," said Furneaux, speaking with marked earnestness.

"Yet you ask me to endure his company if he chooses to force