. He did not speak for
a moment; then curtly, noncommittally, "What do you mean?" he said.

"I mean," very steadily Bernard made reply, "that the scoundrel Dacre,
who married Madelina Belleville and then deserted her, left her to go to
the dogs, and your brother-officer who was killed in the mountains on
his honeymoon, were one and the same man. And you knew it."

"Well?" The words seemed to come from closed lips. There was something
terrible in the titter quietness of its utterance.

Bernard searched his face as a man might search the walls of an
apparently impregnable fortress for some vulnerable spot. "Ah, I see,"
he said, after a moment. "You must have believed Madelina to be still
alive when Dacre married. What was the date of his marriage?"

"The twenty-fifth of March." Again the grim lips spoke without seeming
to move.

A gleam of relief crossed his brother's face. "In that case no one is
any the worse. I'm sorry you've carried that bugbear about with you for
so long. What an infernal hound the fellow was!"

"Yes," assented Everard.

He moved to the table and poured himself out a drink.

His brother still watched him. "One might almost say his death was
providential," he observed. "Of course--your wife--never knew of this?"

"No." Everard lifted the glass to his lips with a perfectly steady hand
and drank. "She never will know," he said, as he set it down.

"Certainly not. You can trust me never to tell her." Bernard moved to
his side, and laid a kindly hand on his shoulder. "You know you can
trust me, old fellow?"

Everard did not look at him. "Yes, I know," he said.

His brother's hand pressed upon him a little. "Since they are both
gone," he said, "there is nothing more to be said on the subject. But,
oh, man, stick to the truth, whatever else you let go of! You never lied
to me before."

His tone was very earnest. It held urgent entreaty. Everard turned and
met his eyes. His dark face was wholly emotionless. "I am sorry, St.
Bernard," he said.

Bernard's kindly smile wrinkled his eyes. He grasped and held the
younger man's hand. "All right, boy. I'm going to forget it," he said.
"Now what about turning in?"

They parted for the night immediately after, the one to sleep as
serenely as a child almost as soon as he lay down, the other to pace to
and fro, to and fro, for hours, grappling--and grappling in vain--with
the sternest adversary he had ever had to encounter.

For upon Everard Monck t