nd turned
away.

"Philippa!" he said, and she faintly answered "Yes," being humbled and
shaken by her deadly terror, and scarcely sure of safety yet, for the
roar and the chasm were in sight and hearing still.

"Philippa, are you better? Never mind what you were thinking of. All
shall be right about that, Philippa. What is land in comparison with
life? Look up at me. Don't be afraid to look. Surely you know your only
brother! I am Duncan, who ran away, and has lived for years in India.
I used to be very kind to you when we were children, and why should I
alter from it now? I remember when you tumbled in the path down there,
and your knee was bleeding, and I tied it up with a dock leaf and my
handkerchief. Can you remember? It was primrose time."

"To be sure I do," she said, looking up with cheerfulness; "and you
carried me all the way home almost, and Eliza was dreadfully jealous."

"That she always was, and you not much better. But now we are getting on
in life, and we need not have much to do with one another. Still, we may
try not to kill one another by trumpery squabbles about property. Stay
where you are for a moment, sister, and you shall see the end of that."

Sir Duncan took the bag, with the deed inside it, returned in three
steps to the perilous shelf, and with one strong hurl sent forth the
load, which cleft the white mist, and sank forever in the waves of the
whirlpool.

"No one can prosecute me for that," he said, returning with a smile,
"though Mordacks may be much aggrieved. Now, Philippa, although I can
not carry you well, from the additions time has made to you, I can help
you home, my dear; and then on upon my business."

The pride and self-esteem of Miss Yordas had never been so crushed
before. She put both hands upon her brother's shoulders, and burst into
a flood of tears.

CHAPTER LIII

BUTS REBUTTED

Sir Duncan Yordas was a man of impulse, as almost every man must be who
sways the wills of other men. But he had not acted upon mere impulse in
casting away his claim to Scargate. He knew that he could never live in
that bleak spot, after all his years in India; he disliked the place,
through his father's harshness; he did not care that any son of his, who
had lain under charge of a foul crime, and fled instead of meeting it,
should become a "Yordas of Scargate Hall," although that description by
no means involved any very strict equity of conduct. And besides these
reasons, he had