deliberately made your brother drunk that day at Oxford--I mean that
he took advantage of the weakness that you discovered to tempt him to go
on drinking, so that he might get drunk on the most important morning of
his life. He knew very well what he was doing. He knew if he could only
make him drunk that morning, everything would be at an end between him
and Miss Raleigh."

"But, my dear Dora, suppose that is so, and I hope it isn't," replied
Carol, "how on earth can you have found that out? Of course, if it
really is so, Vane and Sir Arthur ought to know of it, and, well, I
suppose of the other thing too, dreadful and all as it is, but----"

"I see what you mean," said Dora, "and I will tell you why. In the first
place, when we were at the flat, Bernard--I mean Mr. Falcon--told me one
or two things Mr. Garthorne had said to him when they were getting
confidential over their whiskies, and I had a few minutes' talk with
Mr. Ernshaw this evening which--well, what Mr. Falcon told me and what
he said were the two and two that made four. I am afraid that is not
very grammatical, but it is true. Of course he wouldn't have told me if
I had not said something about it; but the moment he told me about your
brother's collapse that morning the truth came to me like a flash.
Reginald Garthorne is a scoundrel, and his father is worse, for he is a
hypocrite as well as a scoundrel. He pretends to be Sir Arthur's
friend--he has done so for years. He has allowed his son to steal Vane's
life-long love from him, knowing all that he himself did--and, well,
no--I can't say the rest."

"You mean," said Carol quietly, and with a note of hardness in her
voice, "you mean that he is my father. It is very dreadful, isn't it?"

"Yes, Dora, it is, but you are not to blame after all; you didn't know,
and of course we must admit that Mr. Garthorne didn't know so morally.
You are both quite innocent there, but there is someone else just now.
We've been friends and comrades now for a long time, tell me, dear, does
Mr. Rayburn know?"

"I have told him everything," replied Carol, with an effort which she
could not conceal, even from Dora.

"Yes, everything, even the very worst. You know when, as he says, he
fell in love with me and, as I told you, began to treat me altogether
differently, and then asked me to marry him, I said 'No.' I felt that I
couldn't say 'Yes' honestly unless he knew everything. I had got very
fond of him, and I suppose that