to
her. While Jasper saved, I was tempted to live largely. I took an
expensive house--there was no earthly good thing I would not have given
to her. She loved me; but, as I said, she was proud. Pride in birth and
position was perhaps her only fault. I was perfect in her eyes, but she
took a dislike to Jasper. This I could have borne, but it pained me when
I saw her turning away from my old father. I dearly loved and respected
my father, and I wanted Constance to love him, but she never could be
got to care for him. It was at that time, that that thing happened which
was the beginning of all the after darkness and misery.

"My father, finding my proud young wife not exactly to his taste, came
less and less to our house. Finally, he bought an old estate in
Hertfordshire, and then one day the news reached us that he had engaged
himself to a very young girl, and that he would marry at once. There was
nothing wrong in this marriage, but Jasper and I chose to consider it a
sin. We had never forgotten our mother, and we thought it a dishonor to
her. We forgot our father's loneliness. In short, we were unreasonable
and behaved as unreasonably as unreasonable men will on such occasions.
Hot and angry words passed between our father and ourselves. We neither
liked our father's marriage nor his choice. Of course, we were scarcely
likely to turn the old man from his purpose, but we refused to have
anything to do with his young wife. Under such circumstances we had an
open quarrel. Our father married, and we did not see him for years. I
was unhappy at this, for I loved my father. Before his second marriage,
he always spent from Saturday to Monday at our house, and though my own
wife not caring for him greatly marred our pleasure, yet now that the
visits had absolutely ceased I missed them--I missed the gray head and
the shrewd, old, kindly face; and often, very often, I almost resolved
to run down into Hertfordshire and make up my quarrel. I did not do so,
however; and as the years went on, I grew afraid to mention my father's
name to either my wife or brother. Jasper and I were at this time deeply
absorbed in speculation; our business was growing and growing; each
thing we embarked in turned out well; we were beginning quite to recover
from the strain which our father's removal of so large a sum of money
had caused. Jasper was a better man of business than I was. Jasper,
though the junior partner, took the lead in all plans. He pro