know it best by the latter name."

"And whom am I speaking to?" said Pracontal; "for as you know me,
perhaps I have some right to ask this."

"My name is Cutbill; and now that you've heard it, you're nothing the
wiser."

"You probably know the Bramleighs?"

"Every one of them; Augustus, the eldest, I am intimate with."

"It's not my fault that I have no acquaintance with him. I desired
it much; and Lady Augusta conveyed my wish to Mr. Bramleigh, but he
declined. I don't know on what grounds; but he refused to meet me, and
we have never seen each other."

"If I don't greatly mistake, you ought to have met. I hope it may not
be yet too late."

"Ah, but it is! We are _en pleine guerre_ now, and the battle must be
fought out. It is he, and not I, would leave the matter to this issue.
I was for a compromise; I would have accepted an arrangement; I was
unwilling to overthrow a whole family and consign them to ruin. They
might have made their own terms with me; but no, they preferred to
defy me. They determined I should be a mere pretender. They gave me no
alternative; and I fight because there is no retreat open to me."

"And yet if you knew Bramleigh--"

"_Mon cher_, he would not give me the chance; he repulsed the offer I
made; he would not touch the hand I held out to him."

"I am told that the judge declared that he never tried a cause where the
defendant displayed a more honorable line of conduct."

"That is all true. Kelson, my lawyer, said that everything they did was
straightforward and creditable; but he said, too, don't go near them,
don't encourage any acquaintance with them, or some sort of arrangement
will be patched up which will leave everything unsettled to another
generation--when all may become once more litigated with less light to
guide a decision and far less chance of obtaining evidence."

"Never mind the lawyers, Count, never mind the lawyers. Use your own
good sense, and your own generous instincts; place yourself--in idea--in
Bramleigh's position, and ask yourself could you act more handsomely
than he has done? and then bethink you, what is the proper way to meet
such conduct."

"It's all too late for this now; don't ask me why, but take my word for
it, it is too late."

"It's never too late to do the right thing, though it may cost a man
some pain to own he is changing his mind."

"It's not that; it's not that," said the other, peevishly, "though I
cannot explain to you why or how