, and went to
Heidelberg.

"But, Herbert's career had only began. In a little while, it was
discovered that our father's name had been forged for a large amount,
and suspicion pointed to my brother Clifford. He came in hot haste on
receipt of a telegram, and he did not come alone. He brought with him,
Detective Bathurst, whom he was so fortunate as to find at Scotland
Yards.

"I need not dwell on what followed; Bathurst is a keen detective; he
vindicated my brother, Clifford, and placed the guilt where it belonged.
It was Herbert who had forged my father's name.

"There was a terrible scene at the Towers. Herbert swore eternal enmity
toward Clifford, and Clifford predicted then and there the downfall of
all our pride, through Herbert's follies. I remember his words
distinctly:

"'Let me tell you how this will end, Lord Heathercliffe,' he said; 'I
have not grown up beside Herbert, not to know him. Our name has
heretofore been stainless; we shall keep it so no longer; it will be
dragged in the mud, smirched, hissed, disgraced utterly. But I will
never permit myself to go down with the fall of the Heathercliffes; I
renounce all claims upon you; I renounce my succession; I renounce a
name already contaminated; the world is my heritage; I shall leave
England; I shall leave Europe; I will make me a new name, and build my
own fortune. When Herbert has broken your heart, and ruined your
fortunes, as he surely will, and when his debaucheries have brought him
to an early grave, as they must, then let the title fall to George; he
is younger; he can not feel this shame so keenly; as for me, I will
never wear the title; I will never be pointed out as the peer whose
elder brother was a rake, a seducer, a forger, and Herbert is all
these.'

"Clifford went back to Heidelberg; Herbert remained at the Towers,
whining, pleading, shamefully fawning upon a doting and half imbecile
old man.

"He feigned illness; he feigned penitence, and finally he held my father
more than ever his adoring slave.

"I can not prolong this recital. It is needless. Herbert ran his race of
infamy. My father died broken hearted. Clifford searched all England to
bring Herbert, then a fugitive, to his father's death bed; but the
officers of justice were before him. They ran him down in an obscure
provincial village, and, to escape the consequences of his misdeeds,
Herbert Heathercliffe crowned his life of mad folly by dying a suicide's
death.

"And now