-a boy. She has heard it all from some friend of
hers at Rome."

"It can't be true."

"She said that I had better tell you. Does it make you unhappy,
George?" To this he made no immediate answer. "What can it matter
whether he was married two months ago or two years? It does not make me
unhappy;" as she said this, she locked herself close into his arm.

"Why should he deceive us? That would make me unhappy. If he had
married in a proper way and had a family, here in England, of course I
should have been glad. I should have been loyal to him as I am to the
others. But if this be true, of course, it will make me unhappy. I do
not believe it. It is some gossip."

"I could not but tell you."

"It is some jealousy. There was a time when they said that Brotherton
meant to marry her."

"What difference could it make to her? Of course we all know that he is
married. I hope it won't make you unhappy, George." But Lord George was
unhappy, or at any rate, was moody, and would talk no more then on that
subject, or any other. But in truth the matter rested on his mind all
the night.

CHAPTER XIV.

"ARE WE TO CALL HIM POPENJOY?"

The news which he had heard did afflict Lord George very much. A day or
two after the dinner-party in Berkeley Square he found Mr. Knox, his
brother's agent, and learned from him that Miss Houghton's story was
substantially true. The Marquis had informed his man of business that
an heir had been born to him, but had not communicated the fact to any
one of the family! This omission, in such a family, was, to Lord
George's thinking, so great a crime on the part of his brother, as to
make him doubt whether he could ever again have fraternal relations
with a man who so little knew his duty. When Mr. Knox showed him the
letter his brow became very black. He did not often forget
himself,--was not often so carried away by any feeling as to be in
danger of doing so. But on this occasion even he was so moved as to be
unable to control his words. "An Italian brat? Who is to say how it was
born?"

"The Marquis, my Lord, would not do anything like that," said Mr. Knox,
very seriously.

Then Lord George was ashamed of himself, and blushed up to the roots of
his hair. He had hardly himself known what he had meant. But he
mistrusted an Italian widow, because she was an Italian, and because
she was a widow, and he mistrusted the whole connexion, because there
had been in it none of that honourable op