rows, in the wasted
contour of her regular features and the flush on her hollow cheeks,
while her eyes burned with a strange fire that almost choked back
Julius's salutation of peace, even while he breathed it, for might
not the Son of Peace be with some there?

The eager glance seemed to dart at him. "Julius Charnock!" she
cried, "come!" and as he would have said some word about her health,
she cut him short: "Never mind that; I must speak while my brain
serves. After that be the priest. He is dead!"

"My brother? Yes."

"The only one I ever loved! There's no sin nor scandal in saying so
now. His wife is better? It will never kill her."

"She does not know."

"No? There was nothing to make her. He could not give her his
heart, try as he would. Why did he turn the unchangeable to hate!
hate! hate!"

"Lady Tyrrell, you did not send for me to hear what ought not to be
said at all?"

"Don't fly off," she said. "I had really something to say. It was
not wholly hate, Julius; I really tried to teach his little idiot of
a wife to win him at last. I meant it to turn out well, and nothing
could, with that mother there."

"I must leave you, Lady Tyrrell, if you will not control yourself."

"Don't be hard on me, Julius," and she looked up with a glance of
better days. "You idolize her, like all the rest of you; but she
chilled me and repelled me, and turned me to bitterness, when I was
young and he might have led me. Her power and his idolatry made me
jealous, and what I did in a fit of petulance was so fastened on
that I could not draw back. Why did not he wait a little longer to
encumber himself with that girl! No--that wasn't what I had to say--
it's all over now. It is the other thing. How is Frank?"

"Very ill indeed; but quieter just now."

"Then there shall not be another wreck like ours. Lena, are you
here? You saw that Frank had let Constance Strangeways win your
pebble. It was because I showed him the one Beatrice bought, and he
thought it yours. Yes, I saw nothing else for it. What was to
become of the property if you threw yourself away, and on _her_
son?" she added, with the malignant look. "Whether he knew of this
little vow of yours, I can't tell, but he had lost his head and did
for himself. It was for your good and papa's; but I shall not be
here to guide the clue, so you must go your own way and be happy in
it, if _she_ will let you. Father, do you hear? Don't think to