f girl. Besides, I've told you I shall always
send her money. She'll find another husband before long. Lots of men 'ud
be only too glad to marry her.'

Alice was not satisfied with her brother. The practical aspects of
the rupture she could consider leniently, but the tone he assumed was
jarring to her instincts. Though nothing like a warm friendship existed
between her and Emma, she sympathised, in a way impossible to Richard,
with the sorrows of the abandoned girl. She was conscious of what her
judgment would be if another man had acted thus; and though this was
not so much a matter of consciousness, she felt that Richard might
have spoken in a way more calculated to aid her in taking his side. She
wished, in fact, to see only his advantage, and was very much tempted to
see everything but that.

'But you can't keep her in the dark any longer,' she urged. 'Why, it's
cruel!'

'I can't tell her,' he repeated monotonously.

Alice drew in her feet. It symbolised retiring within her defences. She
saw what he was aiming at, and felt not at all disposed to pleasure him.
There was a long silence; Alice was determined not to be the first to
break it.

'You refuse to help me?' Richard asked at length, between his teeth.

'I think it would be every bit as bad for me as for you,' she replied.

'That you can't think,' he argued. 'She can't blame you; you've only to
say I've behaved like a blackguard, and you're out of it.'

'And when do you mean to tell mother?'

'She'll have to hear of it from other people. I can't tell her.'

Richard had a suspicion that he was irretrievably ruining himself in his
sister's opinion, and it did not improve his temper. It was a foretaste
of the wider obloquy to come upon him, possibly as hard to bear as any
condemnation to which he had exposed himself. He shook himself out of
the chair.

'Well, that's all I've got to tell you. Perhaps you'd better think over
it. I don't want to keep you away from home longer than you care to
stay. There's a train at a few minutes after nine in the morning.'

He shuffled for a few moments about the writing-table, then went from
the room.

Alice was unhappy. The reaction from her previous high spirits, as
soon as it had fully come about, brought her even to tears. She cried
silently, and, to do the girl justice, at least half her sorrow was on
Emma's account. Presently she rose and began to walk about the room;
she went to the window, and looked out on