o madden me
to see the way in which he traded upon your affection for him. Oh, he
was a bad man."

The red blood flamed into the cheeks of the listener. Berrington could
see her hands clasped together.

"You are wrong," she said, "oh, I am sure you are wrong. Carl was a
little selfish, perhaps, but then he was so brilliantly clever, so much
sought after. And when he fell in love with--with the right woman, I was
entirely happy. He was passionately in love, Philip."

Berrington gave a dissenting gesture. There was a bitter smile on his
lips.

"Carl never cared for anyone but himself," he said. "It was a physical
impossibility."

"Indeed you do him wrong, Phil. He was very much in earnest with Sir
Charles Darryll's ward who came out with her brother and his wife to
Simla. All was going brilliantly when a rival came on the scene. You
were not in Simla at the time, and I daresay if you had been you would
never have heard anything about that unhappy business. Whether the rival
used his power unscrupulously or not I never knew, but there was a
quarrel one day, out riding. Even Carl refused to speak of it. But his
rival was never seen again, and from that day to this Carl has been a
physical wreck. He----"

"You don't mean to say," Berrington burst out, "you don't mean to say
your brother is the Carl Sartoris who is master of this house?"

The woman hesitated, stammered, her face had grown very pale.

"You seem to know more than I imagined," she said. "Perhaps I shall
understand better when I know what brings you here. But Carl Sartoris is
my brother."

"So he has gone back to his mother's maiden name! Does an honest man
want to do anything of that kind? But for the expression of your face,
which is sweet and fair as ever, I should say that you were in this
business. But I have only to glance at you to feel assured on that
point. You say that your brother is more sinned against than sinning.
Can you look me in the face and say that he has no past behind him, that
he is not making a mystery now?"

The girl's face grew pale and she cast down her eyes. Berrington kept
down his rising passion.

"You cannot answer me," he went on. "You find it impossible to do so.
You are running great risks for a worthless creature who is as crooked
in mind as he is in body."

"Oh, don't," Mary Sartoris said. "Don't say such terrible things,
please; they hurt me."

"My dear girl, I am sorry, but it is best to state these things p