meant for Oswald. You believe that now?"

"I know it."

"And that is why I found you in the same house with him."

"It is. Providence has robbed me of my daughter; if this brother of
yours should prove to be the man I am led to expect, I shall ask him to
take that place in my heart and life which was once hers."

A quick recoil, a smothered exclamation on the part of the man he
addressed. A barb had been hidden in this simple statement which had
reached some deeply-hidden but vulnerable spot in Brotherson's breast,
which had never been pierced before. His eye which alone seemed alive,
still rested piercingly upon that of Mr. Challoner, but its light was
fast fading, and speedily became lost in a dimness in which the other
seemed to see extinguished the last upflaring embers of those inner
fires which feed the aspiring soul. It was a sight no man could see
unmoved. Mr. Challoner turned sharply away, in dread of the abyss which
the next word he uttered might open between them.

But Orlando Brotherson possessed resources of strength of which,
possibly, he was not aware himself. When Mr. Challoner, still more
affected by the silence than by the dread I have mentioned, turned to
confront him again, it was to find his features composed and his glance
clear. He had conquered all outward manifestation of the mysterious
emotion which for an instant had laid his proud spirit low.

"You are considerate of my brother," were the words with which he
re-opened this painful conversation. "You will not find your confidence
misplaced. Oswald is a straightforward fellow, of few faults."

"I believe it. No man can be so universally beloved without some very
substantial claims to regard. I am glad to see that your opinion, though
given somewhat coldly, coincides with that of his friends."

"I am not given to exaggeration," was the even reply.

The flush which had come into Mr. Challoner's cheek under the effort he
had made to sustain with unflinching heroism this interview with the man
he looked upon as his mortal enemy, slowly faded out till he looked the
wraith of himself even to the unsympathetic eyes of Orlando Brotherson.
A duty lay before him which would tax to its utmost extent his already
greatly weakened self-control. Nothing which had yet passed showed that
this man realised the fact that Oswald had been kept in ignorance of
Miss Challoner's death. If these brothers were to meet on the morrow, it
must be with the full und