to express them. It is not that my heart
stirs much where my Lord Ostermore is concerned. And yet, for the sake
of the name that is mine now, I shall leave England as I came--Mr.
Justin Caryll, neither more nor less.

"In the eyes of the world there is no slur upon my mother's name,
because her history--her supposed history--was unknown. See that none
ever falls on it, else shall you find me pitiless indeed. See that none
ever falls on it, or I shall return and drive home the lesson that,
like Antinous, you've learnt--that 'twixt the cup and lip much ill may
grow'--and turn you, naked upon a contemptuous world. Needs more be
said? You understand, I think."

Rotherby understood nothing. But his mother's keener wits began to
perceive a glimmer of the truth. "Do you mean that--that we are to--to
remain in the station that we believed our own?"

"What else?"

She stared at him. Here was a generosity so weak, it seemed to her, as
almost to provoke her scorn. "You will leave your brother in possession
of the title and what else there may be?"

"You think me generous, madam," said he. "Do not misapprehend me. I
am not. I covet neither the title nor estates of Ostermore. Their
possession would be a thorn in my flesh, a thorn of bitter memory. That
is one reason why you should not think me generous, though it is not the
reason why I cede them. I would have you understand me on this, perhaps
the last time, that we may meet.

"Lord Ostermore, my father, married you, madam, in good faith."

She interrupted harshly. "What is't you say?" she almost screamed,
quivering with rage at the very thought of what her dead lord had done.

"He married you in good faith," Mr. Caryll repeated quietly,
impressively. "I will make it plain to you. He married you believing
that the girl-wife he had left in France was dead. For fear it should
come to his father's knowledge, he kept that marriage secret from all.
He durst not own his marriage to his father."

"He was not--as you may have appreciated in the years you lived with
him--a man of any profound feeling for others. For himself he had a
prodigiously profound feeling, as you may also have gathered. That
marriage in France was troublesome. He had come to look upon it as
one of his youth's follies--as he, himself, described it to me in this
house, little knowing to whom he spoke. When he received the false news
of her death--for he did receive such news from the very cousin who
crossed