ey were all very wretched.'

'You think Mr. Hamilton did not understand his young brother.'

'Well, perhaps not. You see, Mr. Hamilton had not the same temptations;
he was always steady and hard-working from a boy, and never cared much
about his own comfort. As for getting into debt, why, he would have
considered it wicked to do so. I know the colonel thought once or twice
that he was a little hard on Eric. I remember his saying once 'that boys
will be boys, and that all are not good alike, and that he must not use
the curb too much.' It was a pity, certainly, that Mr. Hamilton was so
angry about his painting. I daresay it was only a temporary craze. I am
afraid, though, Eric must have behaved very badly. I know he struck his
elder brother once. Anyhow, things went on from bad to worse; and one day
a dreadful thing happened. A cheque of some value, I have forgotten the
particulars, was stolen from Mr. Hamilton's desk, and the next day Eric
disappeared.'

'Was he accused of taking it?'

'To be sure. Leah saw him with her own eyes. You must ask Mr. Cunliffe
about all that; my memory is apt to be treacherous about details. I know
Leah saw him with his hand in his brother's desk, and though Eric vowed
it was only to put a letter there,--a very impertinent letter that he had
written to his brother,--still the cheque was gone, and, as they heard
afterwards, cashed by a very fair young man at some London Bank; and the
next morning, after some terrible quarrel, during which Gladys fainted,
poor girl, Eric disappeared, and the very next thing they heard of him,
about three weeks afterwards, was that his watch and a pocket-book
belonging to him had been picked up on the Brighton beach close to Hove.'

'Do you mean that this is all they have ever heard of him?'

'Yes. I believe Mr. Hamilton employed every means of ascertaining his
fate. For some months he refused to believe that he was dead. I am not
sure if Gladys believes it now. But Etta did from the first. "He was weak
and reckless enough for anything," she has often said to me. Of course it
is very terrible, and one cannot bear to think of it, but when a young
man has lost his character he has not much pleasure in his life.'

'I do not think Miss Hamilton really believes that he is dead.'

'Perhaps not, poor darling. But Mr. Hamilton has no doubt on the subject,
my dear Miss Garston. He is much to be pitied: he has never been the same
man since Eric went. I am afraid t