d no doubt the shock of being ignored knocked him off
his balance."

"He has the defects of his qualities, my dear. The same people can often
rise to great heights and sink to great depths. They can do worse
things--and better things--than we humdrum folk, who jog along the
middle of the road. We must forgive such people for doing things we
wouldn't do, and remember their power to do things we couldn't do."

The young man was frankly puzzled by this speech, which came from his
aunt. He shrugged his shoulders.

"I've got to think of father first and Raymond afterwards," he said. "I
owe my first duty to my father, who trusted me and honoured me, and knew
very well that I should obey his wishes and carry on with my life as he
would have liked to see me. He has made a very definite and clear
statement, and I should be disloyal to him--dishonest to him--if I did
anything contrary to the spirit of it."

"Who would wish you to?" asked Ernest Churchouse. "But a brother is a
brother," he continued, "and since there is nothing definite about
Raymond in the will, you should, I think, argue like this. You should
say to yourself, 'my father was disappointed with my brother and did not
know what to do about him; but, having a high opinion of me and my good
sense and honesty, he left my brother to my care. He regarded me, in
fact, as my brother's keeper, and hoped that I would help Raymond to
justify his existence.' Don't you feel like that?"

"I feel that my father was very long-suffering with Raymond, and his
will tells me that he had a great deal more to put up with from Raymond
than anybody ever knew, except my brother himself."

"You needn't take up the cudgels for your father, Dan," interposed Miss
Ironsyde. "Be sure that your dear father, from the peace which now he
enjoys, would not like to see you make his quarrel with Raymond your
quarrel. I'm not extenuating Raymond's selfish and unthinking conduct as
a son. His own conscience will exact the payment for wrong done beyond
repair. He'll come to that some day. He won't escape it. He's not built
to escape it. But he's your brother, not your son; and you must ask
yourself, whether as a brother, you've fairly got any quarrel with him."

Daniel considered a moment, then he spoke.

"I have not," he said--"except the general quarrel that he's a waster
and not justifying his existence. We have had practically nothing to do
with each other since we left school."

"Well," dec