away without speaking and followed Jim back to the smithy.
When we got there, something pierced me like a knife, although all was
not quite clear to my understanding.

"Jim,--Jim," I cried, "surely you never fancied I--I was in any way to
blame for this. Why! Jim,--I don't even know yet what it is all
about."

He laughed unpleasantly. "No, George, no!--Oh! I can't tell you.
Here----"

He went to his coat which hung from a hook in the wall. He pulled a
letter from his inside pocket. "Read that," he said.

I unfolded the paper, as he stood watching me keenly.

The note was in handwriting with which I was well familiar.

"My DEAR LITTLE PEGGY,

I am very, very sorry,--but surely you know that what you ask is
impossible. I shall try to find time to run out and see you at the
usual place, Friday night at nine o'clock. Do not be afraid, little
woman; everything will come out all right. You know I shall see that
you are well looked after; that you do not want for anything.

Burn this after you read it. Keep our secret, and bear up, like the
good little girl you are. Yours affectionately,

H----"

As I read, my blood chilled in my veins, was,--there could be no
mistaking it.

"My God! Jim," I cried, "this is terrible. Surely,--surely----"

"Yes! George," he said, in a tensely subdued voice, "your brother did
that. Your brother,--with his glib tongue and his masterful way.
Oh!--well I know the breed. They are to be found in high and low
places; they are generally not much for a man to look at, but they are
the kind no woman is safe beside; the kind that gets their soft side
whether they be angels or she-devils. Why couldn't he leave her alone?
Why couldn't he stay among his own kind?

"And now, he has the gall to think that his accursed money can smooth
it over. Damn and curse him for what he is."

I had little or nothing to say. My heart was too full for words and a
great anger was surging within me against my own flesh and blood.

"Jim,--does this make any difference between you and me?" I asked,
crossing over to him on the spongy floor of hoof parings and steel
filings. "Does it, Jim?"

He caught me by the shoulders, in his old, rough way, and looked into
my face. Then he smiled sadly and shook his head.

"No, George, no! You're different: you always were different; you are
the same straight, honest George Brammerton to me;--still the same."

"Then, Jim, you will let me try to