all.

"No, I do not."

"You are mistaken. Kiss me once, Lesley, and you will know. You will
feel your love then."

"You insult me, Mr. Trent. Love you? Come one step nearer and I shall
hate you. Oh!" she said, recoiling, as a gleam from the lamp revealed to
her the wild expression in his eyes, the tension of his white lips and
nostrils, the strange transformation in those usually impassive features
which revealed the brutal nature below the polished surface of the man,
"I hate you now!"

She was close to the wall, and her head came in sudden contact with the
old-fashioned bell-rope. She seized it firmly.

"Open the door," she said, "or I shall ring this bell and send for my
father. He will know what to do."

Oliver gazed at her for a minute or two, then, with a smothered oath
upon his lips, he turned slowly to the door and opened it. Before
leaving the room, however, he said, in a voice half-stifled by impotent
passion--

"Is this really your last word?"

"The last I shall ever speak to you," said Lesley, resolutely.

Then he went out, seizing his hat as he passed through the hall and made
his way into the street. He did not notice, as he retired, that a
woman's figure was only half-concealed behind the curtains that screened
a door in the study, and that his interview with Lesley must therefore
have had an unseen auditor. He forgot that Ethel and Rosalind waited for
him above. He was mad with rage; deaf to all voices saving those of
passion: blind to all sights save the visions that floated maddeningly
before his eyes.

Mad, blind, deaf to reason as he was, he was obliged to come back to
earth and its realities before very long. For he was stopped in the
streets by rough hands: a hoarse, passionate voice uttered threats and
curses in his ear; and he found himself face to face with his
long-vanished and half-forgotten brother, Francis Trent.

CHAPTER XXIX.

BROTHERS.

"What do you want with me?" said Oliver trying to shake off the rude
grasp.

"I want you--you," gasped the man. He was evidently much excited, and
his breath came in hard, quick pants. "Have you forgotten your own
brother?"

The two paused for an instant under a gas lamp. Oliver looked into
Francis Trent's drawn, livid face--into the wild, bloodshot eyes, and
for an instant recoiled. It struck him that the face was that of a
madman. But it was, nevertheless, the face of his brother, and after
that momentary pause he recovered