rate, with unusual energy. "I don't mind telling you that such a
slander disables me, and goes to my heart." When he had once begun to
speak on the subject, he could not help expressing himself fully; and
Jack, who had grown out of acquaintance with the nobler sentiments,
woke up with a slight start through all his moral being to recognise
the thrill of subdued passion and scorn and grief which was in his
brother's voice. Innocent Miss Dora, who knew no evil, had scarcely a
doubt in _her_ mind that Frank was guilty; but Jack, who scarcely knew
what goodness was, acquitted his brother instantaneously, and required
no other proof. Perhaps if he had been capable of any impression
beyond an intellectual one, this little incident might, in Miss Dora's
own language, have "done him good."

"So you have nothing to do with it?" he said, with a smile. "Wodehouse!
but then the fellow hasn't a penny. I see some one skulking along under
the walls that looks like him. Hist! Smith--Tom--what do they call you?
We want you here," said Jack, upon whom the moon was shining full. When
he stood in his evening coat and spotless breadth of linen, the heir of
the Wentworths was ready to meet the eye of all the world. His shabby
subordinate stopped short, with a kind of sullen admiration, to look at
him. Wodehouse knew the nature of Jack Wentworth's pursuits a great deal
better than his brother did, and that some of them would not bear much
investigation; but when he saw him stand triumphant in gorgeous apparel,
fearing no man, the poor rascal, whom everybody kicked at, rose superior
to his own misfortunes. He had not made much of it in his own person,
but that life was not altogether a failure which had produced Jack
Wentworth. He obeyed his superior's call with instinctive fidelity,
proud, in spite of himself, to be living the same life and sharing the
same perils. When he emerged into the moonlight, his shaggy countenance
looked excited and haggard. Notwithstanding all his experiences, he was
not of a constitution which could deny nature. He had inflicted every
kind of torture upon his father while living; but, notwithstanding, the
fact of the death affected him. His eyes looked wilder than usual, and
his face older and more worn, and he looked round him with a kind of
clandestine skulking instinct as he came out of the shadow into the
light.

This was the terrible conjunction which Miss Dora saw from her window.
The anxious woman did not w