n collapsing and leaving the
dining-room. His impulse was to go straight to Cadover and make a
business-like statement of the position to Stephen. Then the man would
be armed, and perhaps fight the two women successfully, But he resisted
the impulse. Why should he help one power of evil against another? Let
them go intertwined to destruction. To enrich his brother would be as
bad as enriching himself. If their aunt's money ever did come to him,
he would refuse to accept it. That was the easiest and most dignified
course. He troubled himself no longer with justice or pity, and the next
day he asked his wife's pardon for his behaviour.

In the dining-room the conversation continued. Agnes, without much
difficulty, gained her brother as an ally. She acknowledged that she had
been wrong in not telling him, and he then declared that she had been
right on every other point. She slurred a little over the incident of
her treachery, for Herbert was sometimes clearsighted over details,
though easily muddled in a general survey. Mrs. Failing had had plenty
of direct causes of complaint, and she dwelt on these. She dealt,
too, on the very handsome way in which the young man, "though he knew
nothing, had never asked to know," was being treated by his aunt.

"'Handsome' is the word," said Herbert. "I hope not indulgently. He does
not deserve indulgence."

And she knew that he, like herself, could remember money, and that it
lent an acknowledged halo to her cause.

"It is not a savoury subject," he continued, with sudden stiffness. "I
understand why Rickie is so hysterical. My impulse"--he laid his hand on
her shoulder--"is to abandon it at once. But if I am to be of any use
to you, I must hear it all. There are moments when we must look facts in
the face."

She did not shrink from the subject as much as he thought, as much as
she herself could have wished. Two years before, it had filled her with
a physical loathing. But by now she had accustomed herself to it.

"I am afraid, Bertie boy, there is nothing else to bear, I have tried to
find out again and again, but Aunt Emily will not tell me. I suppose it
is natural. She wants to shield the Elliot name. She only told us in a
fit of temper; then we all agreed to keep it to ourselves; then Rickie
again mismanaged her, and ever since she has refused to let us know any
details."

"A most unsatisfactory position." "So I feel." She sat down again with
a sigh. Mrs. Failing had been a