lp--and her husband's comforting--she could bear it.

"Only one thing--Guy does not know. He need not know just yet--not
till he is stronger. Surely, Edwin will not tell him?"

"No; he promised me he would not. Do not start so. Indeed, there is
no fear."

But that very assurance seemed to rouse it. She began straining her
ears to catch the least noise in the rooms overhead--the boys' rooms.
Guy and Walter shared one; Edwin had his to himself.

"They surely will not meet. Yet Guy sometimes likes sitting over
Edwin's fire. Hark!--was not that the creaking of Guy's room-door?"

"Love--" detaining her.

"I know, John. I am not thinking of going. Guy might suspect
something. No, indeed I am not afraid. They were always fond of one
another--my boys."

She sat down, violently forcing herself not to listen, not to fear. But
the truth was too strong for her.

"Hark! I am sure they are talking. John, you said Edwin promised?"

"Faithfully promised."

"But if, by some accident, Guy found out the truth? Hark! they are
talking very loud. That is a chair fallen. Oh, John--don't keep me!
My boys--my boys." And she ran up-stairs in an agony.

What a sight for a mother's eyes. Two brothers of whom it had been our
boast that from babyhood they had never been known to lift a hand
against each other--now struggling together like Cain and Abel. And
from the fury in their faces, the quarrel might have had a similar
ending.

"Guy!--Edwin!" But the mother might as well have shrieked to the winds.

The father came and parted them. "Boys, are you gone mad? fighting
like brutes in this way. Shame, Guy! Edwin, I trusted you."

"I could not help it, father. He had no right to steal into my room;
no right to snatch her letter from me."

"It was her letter, then?" cried Guy, furiously. "She writes to you?
You were writing back to her?"

Edwin made no answer; but held out his hand for the letter, with that
look of white passion in him so rarely seen--perhaps not thrice since
his infancy. Guy took no heed.

"Give it me back, Guy; I warn you."

"Not till I have read it. I have a right."

"You have none. She is mine."

"Yours?" Guy laughed in his face.

"Yes, mine. Ask my father--ask my mother. They know."

"Mother!"--the letter fell from the poor lad's hand. "Mother, YOU
would not deceive me. He only says it to vex me. I was in a passion,
I know. Mother, it isn't true?"

His piteous tone--