d Hugh, breathing irregularly and speaking very low, "I'll
tell you what I think of you."

"No, Hugh, don't," Pete pleaded. "You'll say things you don't
mean--unkind things, terrible things. I don't deserve it from you.
You--you think that I--that I--"

"Go on. Don't stop. Tell me what I think--I think--that you--that you--"

It was an unbearable moment, an impossible atmosphere, for the
revelation of a first love. Pete felt stripped and shamed.

"You think that I was telling Sylvie, that Sylvie--that I--"

Hugh lifted his hand and struck. The younger man sprang back, then
forward, and was at his elder's throat. For an instant they struggled,
silently, terribly, slipping on the red pine-needles. Then Pete gave a
hard laugh. "Are we tigers?" he asked, and he pulled himself back and
leaned, shaking, against a tree-trunk, gripping it with his hands. His
blue eyes were cold and blazing in his white face, against which Hugh's
blow had made a mark. "You won't strike me again," Pete said. All
boyishness was gone from his hard, level voice. "Go on. Say what you
like. I'll listen."

"You liar!" stormed Hugh. "You cheat!"

Pete laughed again.

A certain quality in his bitter self-control flicked Hugh. He tried to
emulate the young man's coolness.

"I've trusted you," he began again; "and behind my back you have been
trying to win the love of the woman who has promised to be my wife."

"I have not."

"You were not making love to her there, then, when I came up behind you?
When you were so excited that you didn't hear me? when you were moving
toward her--trembling all over? _I_ felt your arm!"

Pete's eyes dropped, then lifted as though under a great weight.

"And you say you're not a liar!"

"I _am_ a liar, though not in the way you mean. We are all liars. We
have caught that little blind girl in a trap. We have lied to her, all
three of us--Bella and I, and you, Hugh--you have lied most of all."

"She loves me," Hugh panted. "She knows me. She understands me."

"Yes," Pete answered, trembling. "I've seen that. I've kept quiet. Bella
and I have given you your happiness. Now you thank me by striking me and
calling me a liar and a cheat!"

Hugh, even in the midst of his bitter and suspicious rage, felt the
justice of the reproach. He paused, looked about, then came close, put a
hand on each of his brother's shoulders, searching the white, young face
with his wild eyes.

"I must have Sylvie," he groaned. "Pete,