done this thing to
shield me you now reproach me with it."

"I?" cried Sir Oliver, aghast.

"Your very words are a reproach. D'ye think I do not read the meaning
that lies under them?"

Sir Oliver rose slowly, staring at his brother. He shook his head and
smiled.

"Lal, Lal!" he said. "Your wound has left you disordered, boy. With what
have I reproached you? What was this hidden meaning of my words? If you
will read aright you will see it to be that to go abroad is to involve
myself in fresh quarrels, for my mood is become short, and I will not
brook sour looks and mutterings. That is all."

He advanced and set his hands upon his brother's shoulders. Holding him
so at arm's length he considered him, what time Lionel drooped his head
and a slow flush overspread his cheeks. "Dear fool!" he said, and shook
him. "What ails you? You are pale and gaunt, and not yourself at all. I
have a notion. I'll furnish me a ship and you shall sail with me to my
old hunting-grounds. There is life out yonder--life that will restore
your vigour and your zest, and perhaps mine as well. How say you, now?"

Lionel looked up, his eye brightening. Then a thought occurred to him;
a thought so mean that again the colour flooded into his cheeks, for he
was shamed by it. Yet it clung. If he sailed with Oliver, men would
say that he was a partner in the guilt attributed to his brother. He
knew--from more than one remark addressed him here or there, and left by
him uncontradicted--that the belief was abroad on the countryside that a
certain hostility was springing up between himself and Sir Oliver on
the score of that happening in Godolphin Park. His pale looks and hollow
eyes had contributed to the opinion that his brother's sin was weighing
heavily upon him. He had ever been known for a gentle, kindly lad, in
all things the very opposite of the turbulent Sir Oliver, and it was
assumed that Sir Oliver in his present increasing harshness used his
brother ill because the lad would not condone his crime. A deal of
sympathy was consequently arising for Lionel and was being testified to
him on every hand. Were he to accede to such a proposal as Oliver now
made him, assuredly he must jeopardize all that.

He realized to the full the contemptible quality of his thought
and hated himself for conceiving it. But he could not shake off its
dominion. It was stronger than his will.

His brother observing this hesitation, and misreading it drew him to th