y. He threw himself into an
easy-chair and lighted a pipe. Perhaps after all in his weariness he had
exaggerated the whole matter. Perhaps--after all--she might yet find that
she loved him enough to cast her own world aside. Recalling her last
words to him, he told himself that he had been too quick to despair. For
she loved him--she loved him! Not all the fashionable cynics her world
contained could alter that fact.

A swift wave of exultation went through him, combating his despair.
However heavy the odds,--however formidable the obstacles--he told
himself he would win--he would win!

Going upstairs a little later, he was surprised to hear a low sound
coming from Robin's room. He had thought the boy would have been in bed
and asleep some time since. He stopped at the door to listen.

The next moment he opened it and quietly entered, for Robin was sobbing
as if his heart would break.

There was no light in the room save that which shone from the park-gates
opposite and the candle he himself carried. Robin was sunk in a heap
against the bed still fully dressed. He gave a great start at his
brother's coming, shrinking together in a fashion that seemed to make him
smaller. His sobbing ceased on the instant. He became absolutely still,
his claw-like hands rigidly gripped on the bedclothes, his face wholly
hidden. He did not even breathe during the few tense seconds that Dick
stood looking down at him. He might have been a creature carved in
granite. Then Dick set down his candle, went to him, sat on the low bed,
and pulled the shaggy head on to his knee.

"What's the matter, old chap?" he said.

All the tension went out of Robin at his touch. He clung to him in
voiceless distress.

Dick's heart smote him. Why had he left the boy so long? He laid a very
gentle hand upon him.

"Come, old chap!" he said. "Get a hold on yourself! What's it all about?"

Robin's shoulders heaved convulsively; his hold tightened. He murmured
some inarticulate words.

Dick bent over him. "What, boy? What? I can't hear. You haven't been up
to any mischief, have you? Robin, have you?" A sudden misgiving assailed
him. "You haven't hurt anybody? Not Jack, for instance?"

"No," Robin said. But he added a moment later with a concentrated passion
that sounded inexpressibly vindictive, "I hate him! I do hate him! I wish
he was dead!"

"Why?" Dick said. "What has he been doing?"

But Robin burrowed lower and made no answer.

Dick sat for