er's heart.

"So," he said, with the harsh laugh of excited temper, "he has been
telling you his story. I knew he would."

"He has been telling me no story, Theo," said Lady Markland. "Oh yes, he
has been telling me that Mr. Cavendish----"

"Confound Mr. Cavendish! I am speaking of your boy, Lady Markland. He
has been telling you about the cut on his forehead."

She looked from the man to the child, growing pale. "He fell," she said
faltering. "But he says it does not hurt."

"The little liar!" cried Theo, in his excitement. "Why didn't you tell
your mother the truth?"

"Warrender!" said little Geoff, in a tone which conveyed such a warning
as Theo would not have taken from any man in the excited state of his
mind. The child was red with sudden indignation, but still he held fast
to his part.

"Geoff, run away home!" cried his mother, trembling. "Nurse will bathe
it for you: and papa,"--she had ventured to call her young husband by
this name since the birth of the babies,--"will give me his arm."

"I tell you he is a little liar," said Theo again. "He did not fall. I
threw him down. He thrust himself into the midst of my family affairs, a
meddling little fool, and I caught hold of him and threw him out of the
way. It is best that you should know the truth."

They stood all three in the middle of the bare road, the afternoon sun
throwing its level light into their eyes,--looking at each other,
confronting each other, standing apart.

"Theo," said Lady Markland, "I am sure you did not mean to hurt him.
It was--an accident, after all. And Geoff, I am sure, never meant to
interfere. But, indeed, you must not use such words of my boy."

"What words would you like me to use? He is the pest of my existence. I
want you to understand this once for all. I cannot go on in this way,
met at every turn by a rival, an antagonist. Yes, he is my rival in your
heart, he is my opponent in everything. I cannot turn round at my own
table, in my own house, without his little grinning face----" Here Theo
stopped, with a still harsher laugh. The startled faces of the mother
and son, the glance they gave at each other like a mutual consultation,
the glow of indignation that overcame Lady Markland's paleness, were all
apparent to him in a flash of meaning. "Oh, I know what you will say!"
he cried. "It is not my house; it is Geoff's. A woman has no right to
subject her husband to such a humiliation. Get your things together,
Frances,