“I have time enough, and we can walk on until a car overtakes us, if you care to,” said Dorothy, who had a reason of her own for desiring an uninterrupted interview with her companion. “I’d like to walk,” replied Antrim, whose mood welcomed a diversion of any sort. They went on together, and mutual constraint immediately thrust a barrier of silence between them. Antrim thought he knew enough of Brant’s secret to make him hesitate to speak first of the thing which he imagined was uppermost in Dorothy’s mind; and Dorothy was made dumb by a great sympathy for Antrim in his disappointment. None the less, she was the first to break the silence. “Have you--have you been to see Mr. Brant since the--” She could not give it a name, and Antrim promptly forestalled the necessity. “Yes; I was with him for half an hour yesterday afternoon.” Dorothy meant to go straight on to the end she had in view, but her courage failed, and she had to bridge the gap with a commonplace. “Isn’t it dreadful!” she said. “That depends upon how you look at it,” rejoined Antrim, forgetting for the moment to whom he was talking. “I don’t believe Brant is guilty.” “O Harry!” Dorothy stopped, and the quick tears blinded her. Whereupon Antrim realized, with a pang of remorse for his thoughtlessness, what such an assertion must mean to William Langford’s sister, and he made haste to comfort her. “You mustn’t take it for granted that I am accusing Will. I am not; I just leave him out of the question altogether, and stick to Brant for what I know of him. He wouldn’t do such a thing any more than I would.” Dorothy could not so easily avoid the apparently inevitable conclusion, but her enthusiasm rose unbidden at the tribute to the worth of the man whom she loved. “I want to think so too, Harry--oh, _so_ much! But papa says he doesn’t deny it.” “No, he doesn’t; and he doesn’t affirm it, either. And till he does, I am not going to believe it,” said Antrim stoutly. At this conjuncture it occurred to Dorothy that Antrim was behaving very nobly toward his successful rival, and she found space to lay a little offering on the altar of manly friendship. “It is very generous of you, Harry, to feel that way after what has happened. I have been afraid you might feel just the least bit vindictive.” “Vindictive? You don’t know what I owe him, Dorothy. It is a bigger debt than I ever owed any one before, and I’d pay it if it took the last thing I have in the world.” “It has taken the thing you valued most, hasn’t it?” said Dorothy, with heartfelt sympathy in voice and eyes. “Poor Isabel! It is a dreadful blow for her! And she is taking it so strangely.” Antrim was properly mystified, but he got no farther than to say: “Isabel? I am afraid I don’t quite understand.” “Surely she has told you,” said Dorothy, who could not imagine anything like duplicity on the part of her outspoken sister.