of it; John never could make him sit.) Before the
dear old man got so infirm he used generally to go out about once a year
and come back in low spirits, not liking to be questioned. He may have
gone then to see his mother, but I know sister used to think he went to
see the relations of that wretched woman, his first wife. Who shall say
now?"

And then he sat down and thought and thought, but nothing came of his
thinking. Peter Melcombe, so far as he knew, was perfectly well; that
was a comfort. Valentine was very docile; that was also a comfort; and
considering that what his father had wished for him nearly four years
ago was actually coming to pass, and everything was in train for his
going to one of the very best and healthiest of our colonies, there
seemed little danger that even if Melcombe fell to him he should find
the putting it from him a great act of self-denial.

And what a strange thing it was, Brandon thought, that through the force
of circumstances he himself should have been made to bring about such an
unlikely thing! That so young a man should want to marry was strange
enough. It was more strange that he should have fixed on the only woman
in the world that his brother wanted. This said brother had thought it
the very climax of all that was strange that it should have devolved on
him who had command of money and who knew the colonies, to make this
early marriage possible. But surely the climax of strangeness was
rather here, that he had all this time been working as if on purpose to
bring about the longing desire of his old step-father, which till then
he had never heard of, depriving Valentine as much as was possible of
his freedom, shutting him up to the course his father wanted him to
follow, and preparing to send him as far as in this world he could be
sent from the dreaded precincts of Melcombe.

Brandon had devoted out of his moderate patrimony a thousand pounds each
to his step-brother and his step-sisters. In the case of Valentine he
had done more; he had in a recent visit to New Zealand bought some land
with a dwelling-house on it, and to this place it was arranged that
immediately on his marriage Valentine should sail.

Brandon felt a strong desire to go and look at Melcombe, for his
step-father's conduct with regard to it kept coming back to his mind
with ever-fresh surprise; but though he searched his memory it could
yield him nothing, not a hint, not a look, from any one which threw the
l