on."

"Yes, I am afraid so," Brandon answered, "I have often thought of that."

Valentine went on. "I always knew, felt rather, that he must have had a
tremendous quarrel with his elder brother. He never would mention him if
he could help it, and showed an ill-disguised unforgiving sort
of--almost dread, I was going to say, of him, as if he had been
fearfully bullied by him in his boyhood and could not forget it; but,"
he continued, still pondering, "it surely is carrying both anger and
superstition a little too far, to think that when he is in his grave it
will do his son any harm to inherit the land of the brother he
quarrelled with."

"Yes," said Giles, "when one considers how most of the land of this
country was first acquired, how many crimes lie heavy on its various
conquerors, and how many more have been perpetrated in its transmission
from one possessor to another;" then he paused, and Valentine took up
his words.

"It seems incredible that he should have thought an old quarrel (however
bitter) between two boys ought, more than half a century afterwards, to
deprive the son of one of them from taking his lawful inheritance."

"Yes," Brandon said. "He was no fool; he could not have thought so, and
therefore it could not have been that, or anything like it. Nor could he
have felt that he was in any sense answerable for the poor man's death,
for I have ascertained that there had been no communication between the
two branches of the family for several years before he laid violent
hands on himself."

Valentine sighed restlessly. "The whole thing is perfectly
unreasonable," he said; "in fact, it would be impossible to do as he
desires, even if I were ever so willing."

"Impossible?" exclaimed Brandon.

"Yes, the estate is already mine; how is it possible for me not to take
it? I must prove the will, the old will, the law would see to that, for
there will be legacy duty to pay. Even if I chose to fling the income
into the pond, I must save out enough to satisfy the tax-gatherers. You
seem to take for granted that I will and can calmly and secretly let the
estate be. But have you thought out the details at all? Have you formed
any theory as to how this is to be done?"

He spoke with some impatience and irritation, it vexed him to perceive
that his brother had fully counted on the dead father's letter being
obeyed. Brandon had nothing to say.

"Besides," continued Valentine, "where is this sort of thing to sto