Wilkie Collins

“ Helena’s Diary To-day I went as usual to the Scripture-class for girls. It was harder work than ever, teaching without Eunice to help me. Indeed, I felt lonely all day without my sister. When I got home, I rather hoped that some friend might have come to see us, and have been asked to stay to tea. The housemaid opened the door to me. I asked Maria if anybody had called.
“Yes, miss; a lady, to see the master.”
“A stranger?”
“Never saw her before, miss, in all my life.” I put no more questions. Many ladies visit my father. They call it consulting the Minister. ”

“ Let us say, a middle-aged woman.”
“Perhaps she is still an attractive person?”
He smiled. “I am afraid, Helena, that would never have been a very accurate description of her.”
I now knew all that I wanted to know about this alarming person, excepting one last morsel of information which my father had strangely forgotten.
“We have been talking about the lady for some time,” I said; “and you have not yet told me her name.”
Father looked a little embarrassed “It’s not a very pretty name,” he answered. “My cousin, my unfortunate cousin, is—Miss Jillgall.” ”

“ Those nervous quiverings, which Eunice has mentioned in her diary, began to appear in his face.
“It is too shameful a story,” he said, “to be told to a young girl. The marriage was dissolved by law; and the wife was the person to blame. I am sure, Helena, you don’t wish to hear any more of this part of the story.”
I did wish. But I saw that he expected me to say No—so I said it.
“The father and daughter,” he went on, “never so much as thought of returning to their own country. They were too poor to live comfortably in England. In Belgium their income was sufficient for their wants. ”

“ Excitement, I am sure, is good for young women. I saw in his face, I heard in his last words, that the mystery of the lady was at last to be revealed. The sensation of languor and fatigue which follows a disturbed night left me directly.
My father gave me his arm, and we walked slowly up and down the lawn.
“When that lady called on me yesterday,” he began, “you wanted to know who she was, and you were surprised and disappointed when I refused to gratify your curiosity. My silence was not a selfish silence, Helena. I was thinking of you and your sister ”

“ He advises them in their troubles, and guides them in their religious difficulties, and so on. They come and go in a sort of secrecy. So far as I know, they are mostly old maids, and they waste the Minister’s time. ”