ll the
better. And you--well you know, old boy, you were never a reproach to
him, as the sight of me was!"

Cuthbert's voice dropped. He had never spoken of it before, but he and
Wyvis knew well enough that his lameness was the result of his father's
brutal treatment of Mary Brand shortly before the birth of her second
son.

"He ought to have been more bent on making amends than on sacrificing
you to me," said Wyvis, bitterly.

"Oh, don't look at it in that way," Cuthbert answered. The natural
sweetness of his disposition made it painful to him to hear his father
blamed, although that father had done his best to make his life
miserable. "He never meant to hurt me, the poor old man; and when he had
done it, the sight of my infirmity became exquisitely painful to him. I
can forgive him that; I can forgive him everything. There are others
whom it is more difficult to forgive."

"You mean----"

"I mean women who have not the courage to be true," said Cuthbert, in a
low voice. He did not look at his brother, but he felt certain that a
thrill of pain passed through him. For a minute or two Wyvis did not
speak.

"Well," he said at last, forcing an uneasy laugh, "I think that she was
perhaps right. She might not have been very happy. And I doubt, after
all, whether I ought to have asked her. Janetta thought not, at any
rate."

"Janetta is generally very wise."

"So she is very wise. I am legally quite free, but she thinks
me--morally--bound."

"Well, so do I," said Cuthbert, frankly. "On all moral and religious
grounds, I think you are as much bound as ever you were. And if Miss
Adair refused you on those grounds, she has more right on her side than
I thought."

"Ah, but she did not," answered Wyvis, dryly. "She refused me because I
was not rich, not 'in society,' and a ploughman's son."

"That's bad," said his brother. And then the two sat for a little time
in silence, which is the way of Englishmen when one wishes to show
sympathy for another.

"But we are not approaching what I want to say at all," said Cuthbert,
presently. "We must not let our feelings run away with us. We are both
in a very awkward position, old boy, but we shan't make it better by
publishing it to the world. If you throw up the place in this absurd
fashion--excuse the term--you _will_ publish it to the world at large."

"Do you think that matters to me?" asked Wyvis, sternly.

"Perhaps not to you. But it matters to mother, and to me. A