ine found it out, kept the thing quiet,
and said that he had given me the money. I expressed my regret, and the
matter blew over. What can you make out of that story?"

He spoke very quietly, but there was a watchfulness in his eye, a slight
twitching of his nostril, which proved him to be not entirely at his
ease. His elder brother laughed aloud.

"If that were all!" he said. "But you forget how base the action would
seem if all the circumstances were known! how black the treachery and
ingratitude to a man who was, after all, your benefactor. Rosalind never
knew of that little episode, I believe? And she has a good deal of
respect for her husband's memory. I should like to see what she would
say about it."

"She would not believe you, my dear boy."

"But if I could prove it? If I had in my possession a full confession
signed by yourself--the confession that Romaine insisted on, you will
remember? What effect would that have upon her mind? And there was that
other business, you know, about Mary's sister, whom you lured away from
her home and ruined. _She_ is dead, but Mary is alive and can bear
witness against you. How would you like these facts blazoned abroad and
brought home to the mind of the pretty girl whom I saw you kissing a
little while ago on the steps of a house in Upper Woburn Place? She is a
Miss Kenyon, I know: an actress; I have heard all about her. Her brother
is a doctor; and she has twenty thousand pounds in her own right."

"You do seem, indeed, to know everything," said Oliver, with a sneer.

"I make it my business to know everything about you. You've been so
confoundedly mean of late that I had begun to understand that I must put
the screw on you. And I warn you, if you don't give me what I ask, or
promise to do so within a reasonable time, I shall first go to Rosalind,
and then to these Kenyon people, and Caspar Brooke, and all these other
friends of yours, and see what they will give me for your secrets."

"They'll kick you out of the house, and you'll be called a fool for your
pains," said the younger man, furiously.

"No, I don't think so. Not if I play my game properly. You are engaged
to Miss Kenyon, are you not?" Oliver stood silent.

"I tell you that she shall never marry you in ignorance of your past
unless you shut my mouth first. And you are the best judge of whether
she will marry you at all or not, when she knows what we know."

Then the two brothers were both silent for a lit