lightest touch upon that sacred wound, was torture
to him.

Poverty, orphanage, and physical weakness had always set him apart, but
while Will lived he had not greatly minded. He had kept in touch with
his world through its greatest favorite, that handsome, witty brother;
and it had been the same when Will was praised, or courted, as if it had
been himself. Death had torn from him the best part of himself, and as
if this loss were not cruel enough simply as a loss, it had left behind
the conviction that in dying that worshiped brother believed the one who
would gladly have died for him to be his slayer. No wonder Dan moaned
and writhed, incapable of comfort. He wonder he shunned everybody,
knowing what they believed of him.

No wonder he groped in black despair and could not yet look up, or
listen to the voices of consolation that might have come to him in
different moods.

It was night for Dan in more senses than one.

CHAPTER X.

AT THE BONNIVELS'.

The Bonnivels were at dinner, one evening, somewhat before the events
related in the past few pages, and were discussing in lively tones a
long letter which had come from Leon that day--Leon Bonnivel, the absent
son and brother who was in a ship of war off the South Atlantic coast.
He had just been advanced to a first lieutenancy, and the family were
jubilant in consequence.

For the Bonnivels had known hard times in their southern home, when
Dorette and Leon were little, and his appointment to the Naval school
had been the first lightening of their fortunes, Dorette's marriage to
an honest young fellow in a good situation the second.

That Madame Bonnivel and Camille were never allowed to feel their
dependence upon Mr. and Mrs. Larrimer Driscoll took from its bitterness,
yet it was to Leon both looked as the family's true head, by whose
advancement all would certainly be gainers. They loved the spirited
young soldier-sailor as helpless women do love their braves, who go out
from them to fight the battles of life, and they watched his career with
their hearts' pendulums swinging between pride and dread--joy and alarm.

Madame Bonnivel's face was now radiant, while her sightless eyes sparkle
with enthusiasm. Dorette looked placidly pleased, Larry kindly
sympathetic, while Camille showed her delight in her rattling tongue and
eager gestures. "We must tell Joyce," she cried, squeezing Dodo's arm in
a vain effort to express all she felt. "She is as fond of