hile Rupert,
realising that he had outwitted himself indeed, bestowed inward curses
upon most of his relations and his own fate.

The elder brother resumed at length, with a faint smile:

"And so, you see, even if you had spoken out in time, it would have
been of little avail." Then he added, bitterly. "I have received a
wound from an unforeseen quarter. You have dealt it, to no purpose,
Rupert, as you see ... though it may be some compensation to such a
nature as yours to know that you have left in it a subtle venom."

The sun had already sunk away, and its glow behind the waters had
faded to the merest tinge. In the cold shadow of rising night the two
men advanced silently homewards. Sir Adrian's soul, guided by the
invidious words, had flown back to that dead year, the central point
of his existence--It was true: men will be men--in that very house,
yonder, he had betrayed his love to her; on board the ship that took
them away and by the camp fire on the eve of fight, he had pleaded the
cause of his passion, not ignobly indeed, with no thought of the
baseness which Rupert assigned to him, yet with a selfish disregard of
her position, of his own grave trust. And it was with a glow of pride,
in the ever living object of his life's devotion--of gratitude
almost--that he recalled the noble simplicity with which the woman,
whom he had just heard classed among the every-day sinners of society,
had, without one grandiloquent word, without even losing her womanly
softness, kept her lover as well as herself in the path of her lofty
ideal--till the end. And yet she did love him: at the last awful
moment, sinking into the very jaws of death, the secret of her heart
had escaped her. And now--now her beauty, and something of her own
life and soul was left to him in her child, as the one fit object on
which to devote that tenderness which time could not change.

* * * * *

After a while, from the darkness by his side came the voice of his
brother again, in altered, hardly recognisable accents.

"Adrian, those last words of yours were severe--unjust. I do not
deserve such interpretation of my motives. Is it my fault that you are
not as other men? Am I to be blamed for judging you by the ordinary
standard? But you have convinced me: you were as chivalrous as Cecile
was pure, and if needs be, believe me, Adrian, I will maintain it so
in the face of the world. Yes, I misunderstood you--and wounded