"This way, sir; this way, my lady; we knew you was a-coming, so we kep' a nice warm fire in the parlor. This way, my lady, and mind the step up. Yes, it air dark, but it's clean, sir; yes, it is, sir; but there's a light in here, sir."

Paul and Greta followed the landlady through the dark bar.

"We'll find our way, my good woman. Ah, and how cozy you are here! As warm as toast on a cold night. Thank you, thank you—and—why, surely we've—we've surprised you. Did you say you were expecting somebody? Ah, I see!"

Mrs. Drayton was backing out of the room with a pallid face, and twitching at the string of her apron. When she got to the bar she was trembling from head to foot.

"I don't believe in ghosts," she muttered to herself, "but if so be as I did believe in ghosts, and afeart of 'em, I don't know as ... Lor's a mercy me! Who was a-saying as our Paul was like some one? And now here's some one as is like our Paul. And as much a match as two pewters, on'y one more smarter, mayhap, and studdier."

"Whatever ails the old lady?" said Greta, faintly.

Paul stood a moment and laughed.

"Strange, but we can't trouble now. What a mercy we're safe and unharmed."

"A fearful sight—I'll never, never forget it," said Greta, and she covered her face.

Paul stepped to the door. The flyman was bringing in the luggage.

"Leave the boxes in the bar, driver—there, that will do. Many of them, eh? Rather. Here's for yourself. Why, bless my soul, who's this? What, Hugh!"

Hugh Ritson walked into the room calm and smiling, and held out his hand to Greta and then to his brother.

"I came up to meet your train," he said, in answer to the look of inquiry.

"Well, that was good of you. Of course, you know of the accident. How did you find us here?"

"I heard at the station that a lady and gentleman had gone to the Hawk and Heron."

"And you followed? Well, Hugh, I must say that was brotherly of you, after all. Wasn't it, Greta?"

"Yes, dear," said Greta, faintly, her voice trembling.

Paul observed her agitation.

"My poor girl, you are upset. I don't wonder at it. You must get off for the night. Hugh, you must excuse her. It was a terrible scene, you know. Our new life begins with a great shock to you, Greta. Never mind; that only means that the bright days are before us."

Paul stepped to the door again, and called to Mrs. Drayton.

"Here, my good landlady, take my wife to her room."

The landlady hobbled up.

"Room, sir, room? The gentleman didn't say nothing—"

"Take the lady to your best room upstairs," said Hugh, with a significant look.

Greta was going. Her step was slow and uncertain.

"Won't you say good-night, Greta?" said Hugh.

"Good-night," she said, so faintly as hardly to be heard.

The brothers looked after her.

"God bless her!" said Paul, fervently. "The days before her shall be brighter, if I can make them so."

Hugh Ritson closed the door.

"Paul," he said, "you and your wife must never meet again."

Paul Ritson turned red, and then ashy pale. A scarcely perceptible tremble of the eyelids, then a jaunty laugh, and then an appalling solemnity.

"What d'ye mean, man?" he said, with a vacant stare.

"Sit down and listen," said Hugh, seating himself, and lifting the poker to draw the fire together.

"Quick, tell me what it, is!" said Paul again.

"Paul, don't chafe. We are hot-tempered men, both, at bottom," said Hugh, and his eye perused his brother with searching power.

"Don't look at me like that," said Paul. "Don't try to frighten me. Speak out, and quickly."

"Be calm," said Hugh.

"Bah! you take me blindfold to the edge of a precipice, and tell be to 'be calm.'"

"You are wrong. I find you there, and remove the bandage," said Hugh.

"Quick! what is it? In another moment I shall cry out!"

Hugh Ritson rose stiffly to his feet.

"Paul, did you tell Greta she was marrying a bastard?"

With one look of anguish Paul fell back mute and trembling.

"Did you tell her?" said Hugh, with awful emphasis.

Paul's eyes were on the ground, his head bent forward. He was silent.

"I thought you did not mean to tell her," said Hugh, coldly. His eyes looked steadfastly at Paul's drooping head. "I think so still."

Paul said nothing, but drew his breath hard. Hugh watched him closely.

"To marry a woman under a false pretense—is it the act of an honorable man? Is it a cheat? Give it what name you will."

Paul drew himself up; his lips were compressed, and he smiled.

"Is this all?" he asked.

"Why did you not tell her?" said Hugh.

"Because I had sworn to tell no one. You will read that secret, as you have read the other."

Hugh smiled.

"Say, rather, because you dare not do so; because, had you told her, she had never become your wife."

Paul laughed vacantly.

"We shall see. My own lips are sealed, but yours are free. You shall tarnish the memory of our father and blacken the honor of our mother. You shall humble me, and rob me of my wife's love—if you will and can."

Saying this, Paul stepped hastily to the door, flung it open, and cried: "Greta! Greta!"

Hugh followed him and caught him arm.

"What are you doing?" he said, in a hoarse whisper; "be quiet, I tell you—be quiet."

Paul turned about.

"You say I am afraid to tell her. You charge me with trapping her into marrying me. You shall tell her yourself, now, here, and before my very face!"

"Come in and shut the door," said Hugh.

"It would do no good, and perhaps some harm. No matter, you shall tell her. I challenge you to tell her."

"Come in, and listen to me," said Hugh, sullenly; and putting himself between Paul and the door, he closed it. "There is more to think of than what Greta may feel," he added. "Have you nothing to say to me?"

Paul's impetuous passion cooled suddenly.

"I have made you atonement," he said, faintly, and dropped into a seat.

"Atonement!"

Hugh Ritson smiled bitterly.

"When you return you will see," said Paid, his eyes once more on the ground.

"You are thinking of the deed of attorney—I have heard of it already," said Hugh. A cold smile played on his compressed lips.

"It was all that was left to do," said Paul, his voice hardly stronger than a whisper. His proud spirit was humbled, and his challenge dead.

"Paul, you have robbed me of my inheritance, consciously, deliberately. You have stood in my place. You stand there still. And you leave me your pitiful deed by way of amends!"

A black frown crossed Hugh Ritson's face.

"Atonement! Are you not ashamed of such mockery? What atonement is there for a wrong like that?"

"I did it for the best; God knows I did!" said Paul, his head fell on the table.

Hugh Ritson stood over him, pale with suppressed wrath.

"Was it best to hold my place until my place was no longer worth holding, and then to leave it with an empty show of generosity? Power of attorney! What right have you to expect that I will take that from you? Take my own from the man who robbed me of it, and to receive it back on my knees! To accept it as a gift, whereof the generosity of giving is yours, and the humility of receiving is mine!"

A strong shudder passed over Paul's shoulders.

"I was helpless—I was helpless!" he said.

"Understand your true position—your legal position. You were your mother's illegitimate son—"

"I did it to protect her honor!"

"You mean—to hide her shame!"

"As you will. I was helpless, and I did it for the best."

Hugh Ritson's face grew dark.

"Was it best to be a perjured liar?" he said.

Paul gasped, but did not reply.

"Was it best to be a thief?"

Paul leaped to his feet.

"God, give me patience!" he muttered.

"Was it best to be an impostor?"

"Stop, for God's sake, stop!"

"Was it best to be a living lie—and all for the sake of honor? Honor, forsooth! Is it in perjury and robbery that honor lies?"

Paul strode about the room in silence, ashy pale, his face convulsed and ugly. Then his countenance softened, and his voice was broken as he said:

"Hugh, I have done you too much wrong already. Don't drive me into more; don't, don't, I beseech you!"

Hugh laughed lightly—a little trill that echoed in the silent room.

At that heartless sound all the soul in Paul Ritson seemed to freeze. No longer abashed, he lifted his head and put his foot down firmly.

"So be it," he said, and the cloud of anguish fell from his face. "I say it was to save our mother's good name that I consented to do what I did."

"Consented?" said Hugh, elevating his eyelids.

"You don't believe me? Very well; let it pass. You say my atonement is a mockery. Very well, let us say it is so. You say I have kept your place until it is no longer worth keeping. You mean that I have impoverished your estate. That is not true. And you know it is not true. If the land is mortgaged, you yourself have had the money!"

"And who had a better right to it?" said Hugh, and he laughed again.

Paul waved his hand, and gulped down the wrath that was rising.

"You have led me the life of the damned. You know well what bitter cup you have made me drink. If I have stood to the world as my father's heir, you have eaten up the inheritance If my father's house was mine, I was no more than a cipher in it. I have had the shadow, and you the substance. You have undermined me inch by inch!"

"And, meantime, I have been as secret as the grave," said Hugh, and once more he laughed lightly.

"God knows your purpose—you do nothing without one," said Paul. "But it is not I alone that have suffered. Do you think that all this has been going on under our mother's eyes without her seeing it?"

Hugh Ritson dropped the bantering tone.

Paul's face grew to an awful solemnity.

"When our father died, it was to be her honor or mine to die with him. That was the legacy of his sin, Heaven forgive him. I did not hesitate. But since that hour she has wasted away."

"Is this my fault?" Hugh asked.

"Heaven knows, and Heaven will judge between you," said Paul. "She could bear it no longer." Paul's voice trembled as he added, "She's gone!"

There was a moment's silence. It was as if an angel went by weeping.

"I know it," said Hugh, coldly. "She has taken the veil. I have since seen her."

Paul glanced up.

"She is in the Catholic Convent at Westminster," said Hugh.

Paul's face quivered.

"Miserable man! but for you, how happy she might have been!"

"You are wrong," said Hugh. "It came of her own misdeed—and yours."

Paul strode toward his brother with uplifted hand.

"Not another word of that," he said, and his voice was low and deep.

"How could she examine her conscience and be happy? She had put an impostor in the place of my father's heir," said Hugh.

"She had put there your father's first-born son," said Paul.

"It is false! She had put there her bastard by another man!"

Silent and awful, Paul stood a moment, with an expression of agony so horrible that for an instant even Hugh Ritson quailed before it.

"Go on," he said, huskily, and crouched down into his seat.

"Your mother was married before," said Hugh, "and her marriage was annulled. It was invalid. A child was born of that union."

Paul lifted his head.

"I won't believe it!"

"It is true, and you shall believe it!"

Paul's heart sickened with dread.

"Your father married again, and had a daughter. Your mother married again, and had a son. Your father's daughter is now living. Shall I tell you who she is? She is your wife—the woman you have married to-day!"

Paul sprung to his feet.

"It is a lie!" he cried.

"See for yourself," said Hugh Ritson; and taking three papers from his pocket, he threw them on to the table. They were the copies of certificates which Bonnithorne had given him.

Paul glanced at them with vacant and wandering eyes, fell back in his chair, dropped his head on to the table, and groaned.

"Oh, God! can this thing be?"

"When your mother told you that you were an illegitimate son, she omitted to say by what father. That was natural in her, but cruel to you. I knew the truth from the first."

"Then you are a scoundrel confessed!" cried Paul.

Hugh rolled his head slightly, and made a poor pretense to smile.

"I knew how she had passed from one man to another; I knew what her honor counted for. And yet I was silent—silent, though by silence I lost my birthright. Say, now, if you will, which of us—you or I—has been the true guardian of our mother's name?"

Paul got up again, abject, crushed, trembling in every limb.

"Man, man, don't gnaw my heart away! Unsay your words! Have pity on me, and confess that it is a lie—a black, foul lie! Think of the horror of it—only think of it, and have pity!"

"It is true!"

Then Paul fell on his knees and caught his brother by the arm.

"Hugh, Hugh! my brother, confess it is false! Don't let my flesh consume away with horror! Don't let me envy the very dead who lie at peace in their graves! Pity her, if you have no pity left for me!"

"I would save you from a terrible sin."

Paul rose to his feet.

"Now I know it is a lie!" he said, and all the abject submission of his bearing fell away in one instant.

Hugh Ritson's face flushed.

"There is that here," said Paul, throwing up his head and striking his breast, "that tells me it is false!"

Hugh smiled coldly, and regained his self-possession.

"My mother knew all. If Greta had been my half-sister, would she have stood by and witnessed our love?"

Hugh waved his hand deprecatingly.

"Your mother was as ignorant of the propinquity as you were. Robert Lowther was dead before she settled at Newlands. The survivors knew nothing of each other. The secret of that early and ill-fated marriage was buried with him."

"Destiny itself would have prevented it, for destiny shapes its own ends, and shapes them for the best," said Paul.

"Yes, destiny is shaping them now," said Hugh, "here, and in me. This is the point to which the pathways of your lives have tended. They meet here—and part."

Paul's ashy face smiled.

"Then nature would have prevented it," he said. "If this thing had been true, do you think we should not have known it—she and I—in the natural recoil of our own hearts? When true hearts meet, there is that within which sanctions their love, and says it is good. That is Heaven's own license. No sanction of the world or the world's law, no earthly marriage is like to that, for it is the marriage first made by nature itself. Our hearts have met, hers and mine, and the same nature has sanctioned our love and sanctified it. And against that last, that first, that highest arbiter, do you ask me to take the evidence of these poor, pitiful papers? Away with them!" Paul's eyes were bright, his face had lost its shadows.

"That is very beautiful, no doubt," said Hugh, and he smiled deeply. "But I warn you to beware."

"I have no fear," said Paul.

"See to it, I tell you. These lofty emotions leave a void that only a few homely facts can fill. Verify them."

"I will, please God!"

"Accept my statements and these papers, or—disprove both."

"I will disprove them."

"Meantime, take care. Leave your wife in this house until morning, but do you go elsewhere."

"What!"

Paul's anger was boiling up.

"If you have wronged Greta—"

"I have done her no wrong," said Paul, growing fiercer.

"I say, if you have wronged her, and would have it in your power to repair the injury, you must pass this night apart."

"Hugh!" cried Paul, in white rage, rising afresh to his feet, "you have tortured me and broken the heart of my mother; you have driven me from my home and from the world; you have thrust yourself between me and the woman who loves me, and now, when I am stripped of all else but that woman's love, and am going out to a strange land, a stranger and with empty hands, you would take her from me also and leave me naked!"

"I would save you from a terrible sin," said Hugh Ritson, once again.

"Out of my way!" cried Paul, in a thick voice, and he lifted his clinched fist.

"Take care, I tell you," said Hugh.

Paul looked dangerous; his forehead contracted into painful lines; his quick breathing beat on Hugh's face.

"For the love of Heaven, get out of my way!"

But with awful strength and fury his fist fell at that moment, and Hugh Ritson was dashed to the ground.

In an instant Paul had lifted his foot to trample him, but he staggered back in horror at the impulse, his face ghastly white, his eyes red like the sun above snow. Then there was silence, and then Paul gasped in a flood of emotion:

"Get up! get up! Hugh, Hugh! get up!"

He darted to the door and threw it open.

"Come in, come in! will nobody come?" he cried.

The landlady was in the room at a stride. She had been standing, listening and quivering, behind the door.

In another moment Greta hurried down-stairs, and hastened to Paul's side.

Paul was leaning against the wall, his face buried in his hands.

"Take him away," he groaned, "before I rue the day that I saw him!"

Hugh Ritson rose to his feet.

"Paul, what has happened?" cried Greta.

"Take him away."

And still Paul covered his eyes from the sight of what he had done and had been tempted to do.

"Hugh, what is it?"

Hugh Ritson stepped to the door.

"Ask your husband," he said, with emphasis, and an appalling calmness. "And remember this night. You shall never forget it!"

Then he halted out of the room.