Hugh was embarrassed and awkward when he came in; Stephen was neither. He lay comfortably on his plumped-up pillows and regarded his brother with a slight, cynical smile.

“Hello, Steve,” the younger said.

Stephen said nothing.

“Jolly fine to see you getting on—Ripping—what—”

“Take it easy,” Stephen said amusedly. “I don’t worry: you needn’t.”

Mrs. Latham pushed a chair to the bed, and Hugh sat down awkwardly, and put down on the small table near Stephen’s pillow a parcel. Stephen eyed it quizzically. “Grapes,” Hugh remarked lamely.

“Why have you come?” the elder demanded.

“To see you, old fellow,” his brother told him.

“What do you want?”

“Haven’t you told him?” Hugh asked Angela, in a palpable panic. She shook her head. “Funked it?”

“Certainly not,” she replied severely. “Merely I hadn’t got to it yet.”

“See here.” Stephen spoke crisply. “We’ll cut all the circumlocutions out. You needn’t be so damned crumpled up, Hugh. If you’ve come here with any idea of letting me down easy, you’ve wasted your time.”

He raised himself up on his pillows and faced his brother defiantly. Hugh blushed like a girl, and fumbled his cap—but sat speechless.

“When we were children you had all the best of it,” Stephen continued. “You’ve had all the best of it all along. You’ve got the best of it now.” Hugh dropped his eyes to his boots, a picture of guilt and discomfort. “We both cared—a good deal—for—Mother. You were her favorite. I was willing. You were the kid—and, believe it or not, I was willing. And I was good to you—for years.”

“God—yes—very,” Hugh said heartily, lifting his troubled eyes to Stephen’s.

“We came to Deep Dale. My heart was sorer than yours. I’d known Mother longer; I missed her more than you did; I needed her more. Well—you had all the fat of it—at Oxshott: there was none of it I grudged you, none—but I was a boy too, and I wanted my share; and I didn’t get it. I had clothes, and food, and servants, and saw a future open up before me, a future of wealth and power. But I wanted love too. I had more brains in my toe than you had in your carcass—and Uncle Dick saw it. He began to take interest in me, to talk to me, to draw me out, he took no end of pains over my education, and before long to plan my future as his ultimate successor at ‘Bransby’s’—but he loved you. And I would have given my poor little hide to have had just half of that love. All my life—ever since I can remember—every day of it, I’ve wanted some one to love me—and no one ever has really—Mother—did half; since she died, no one.”

The fire hissed and flamed in the hearth, and Stephen lay watching it moodily. No one spoke for a long time. It seemed as if none of them could. Hugh was choking. Angela Latham was crying.

At last Stephen spoke, taking up again the sorry parable of his tragedy. “I waited on Aunt Caroline; she waited on you—and I—I wanted a little mothering so. I worked like a navvy, and won prizes at Harrow and Oxford. Uncle Dick said, ‘Creditable, Stephen, quite creditable,’ and gave me a fiver—and I—I wanted the feel of his hand on my shoulder. You played the silly goat at Harrow and at Magdalen, and Uncle Dick said, ‘Tut-tut,’ and bought you a hunter, and coddled you generally. I was driven in on myself, I tell you, at every point. I wanted human affection, and I was left alone to browse on my own canker. Well—I did—I lived alone. There wasn’t a beast on the place, or a servant either, that didn’t come at your whistle and fawn on you, and run from me, if it dared. I lived alone—and was lonely. I lay in the woods as a boy. I worked at that bench when I was older. I dreamed and I planned and I schemed to do a big thing, a damned fine thing too—a bigger thing than you ever could have understood. But Richard Bransby could have understood; he had brains. If you’d wanted to fly on a contrivance of dragon-flies to the moon, he’d have considered whether he couldn’t gratify you, and have turned you down in the end, kindly and generously—but me—it wasn’t the flying and the aircraft I cared about really in the first place; it was the dreaming, and something to take the place of people—the people I wanted and couldn’t have—” Mrs. Latham was sobbing. “Then, presently, I got caught in the charm of the wonderful thing—and went mad—dÆmonized, as the old Greeks were—the men who did the great things, the greatest the world has ever had done. Birds were my prophets—my playfellows, the only ones I had, poor little devil. You played with Helen, I sat apart—and watched you—and then I got to watching the birds and the bats and the insects that flew instead—sometimes. I worked tremendously at drawing and maths and fifty other things that I might be able to invent aircraft and perfect it. But no—Uncle Dick would have none of it. But, by God, I’ll do it yet, I tell you—”

Angela slipped in between the bed and the table, and sat down on the coverlet.

“You must not talk too long,” she said gently.

“Won’t you try some grapes?” Hugh said huskily.

Stephen laughed mirthlessly. “No.” To Mrs. Latham he said, “I’m almost done. There was something I wanted more than I wanted an aerial career,” he went on, looking Hugh full in the face—“more than you ever wanted anything in your life—or could want anything—or many men could. It was not for me. And I might have won it, if it hadn’t been for Uncle Dick. Oh! it wasn’t you who thwarted me—you needn’t think it was—it was he. Always he thwarted me. I did my best to thwart him in return. I wasn’t glad to hurt you, Hugh, truly I wasn’t—” For just an instant his voice softened and suspended. Then he went bitterly on, “You were in the way, and you had to go—that was all—but I’d very much rather it had been any one else. I owed Uncle Dick a good deal, and I tried to pay it. And I’d do it again.”

Hugh held out his hand timidly; it was in apology too. Stephen ignored it, and bent his eyes to the fire.

“Now,” he said, after a long, brooding pause, “you know the depth of my penitence. We’ll talk about something else.”

“We will,” Angela said briskly, but her voice shook. “You say you are going to succeed at the aircraft thing yet. Do you know how you are going to do it?”

“No,” Stephen said gruffly.

“Well, then, I do. We’ve planned it all—Hugh and I.”

Stephen sat up in the bed, he shot her a glance, and then fixed his eyes on his brother. Hugh nodded and went horribly red.

“You are going to do it in South America. That’s the place, where you won’t be overlooked, and half your inventions and things stolen before you’ve perfected them. It’s going to be an enormous thing, our firm—just we three partners. Your brains, your control, my money—and a little from Hugh, and your own too, of course—and all ‘Bransby’s,’ influence and co-operation back of us. It will need a rare lot of capital. Well, it’s ready.”

Stephen paid no attention to her, but he said to his brother—

“Do you mean it?”

“Yes, Stevie—and jolly glad, and pleased—”

Stephen silenced him with a gesture. “Well, I don’t. I’d die first.”

“You’ll die after,” Mrs. Latham remarked.

She put her hand on his face. “You are going to do this for me. I’ve millions, and you are going to double them.”

“I could.”

“You are going to.”

He looked at her then. “Why do you wish to do this—this big thing?”

“Because I like you. And when I like, I like. Never again dare say no one cares for you, Stephen. I care. I liked you cordially from the very first—and believed in you. I like you a thousand times more now. Next to Horace, there is no one in all the world I care for half so much. Won’t you do this for me—consent for my sake?”

A slow color crept into the sick, white face. “I’d like to,” Pryde said gently—“but I can’t. Don’t—don’t say any more about it—please.”

Then Hugh Pryde did the one dramatic thing of his life. A calendar hung on the wall. Hugh pointed to it.

“Do you know what day this is, Stephen?”

Stephen nodded. “I never forget—” There was mist in his stubborn eyes. And in a flash of intuition, Angela understood: this was Violet Pryde’s birthday.

“Won’t you consent, for her sake?” Hugh said. “She would ask you to if she could.”

“Perhaps she is asking you to?” Angela whispered.

Half a moment beat out in silence. Then Stephen said—

“Yes, Hugh, I’ll do it—and thank you both—I’ll do it for Mrs. Latham’s sake—and for Mother’s.” He held out his thin hand—Hugh gripped it. But Angela bent swiftly over Stephen—and kissed him.

THE END

Transcriber’s Notes:

Minor printer errors have been corrected without note. Inconsistency in hyphenation has been retained. Other errors have been corrected as noted below: