is mine!"

A strong shudder passed over Paul's shoulders.

"I was helpless--I was helpless!" he said.

"Understand your true position--your legal position. You were your
mother's illegitimate son--"

"I did it to protect her honor!"

"You mean--to hide her shame!"

"As you will. I was helpless, and I did it for the best."

Hugh Ritson's face grew dark.

"Was it best to be a perjured liar?" he said.

Paul gasped, but did not reply.

"Was it best to be a thief?"

Paul leaped to his feet.

"God, give me patience!" he muttered.

"Was it best to be an impostor?"

"Stop, for God's sake, stop!"

"Was it best to be a living lie--and all for the sake of honor? Honor,
forsooth! Is it in perjury and robbery that honor lies?"

Paul strode about the room in silence, ashy pale, his face convulsed and
ugly. Then his countenance softened, and his voice was broken as he
said:

"Hugh, I have done you too much wrong already. Don't drive me into more;
don't, don't, I beseech you!"

Hugh laughed lightly--a little trill that echoed in the silent room.

At that heartless sound all the soul in Paul Ritson seemed to freeze. No
longer abashed, he lifted his head and put his foot down firmly.

"So be it," he said, and the cloud of anguish fell from his face. "I say
it was to save our mother's good name that I consented to do what I
did."

"Consented?" said Hugh, elevating his eyelids.

"You don't believe me? Very well; let it pass. You say my atonement is a
mockery. Very well, let us say it is so. You say I have kept your place
until it is no longer worth keeping. You mean that I have impoverished
your estate. That is not true. And you know it is not true. If the land
is mortgaged, you yourself have had the money!"

"And who had a better right to it?" said Hugh, and he laughed again.

Paul waved his hand, and gulped down the wrath that was rising.

"You have led me the life of the damned. You know well what bitter cup
you have made me drink. If I have stood to the world as my father's
heir, you have eaten up the inheritance If my father's house was mine, I
was no more than a cipher in it. I have had the shadow, and you the
substance. You have undermined me inch by inch!"

"And, meantime, I have been as secret as the grave," said Hugh, and once
more he laughed lightly.

"God knows your purpose--you do nothing without one," said Paul. "But it
is not I alone that have suffered. Do you think that all this has been