"Then you need not go at all. You will require to do the best courting you ever did, or ever can do, if you hope to get a hearing from Theodora." "She is my wife, David, and she----" "Will be far harder to win, than ever Miss Newton was." "Win! She was won long ago." "Won--and lost. You will not find this second winning an easy one." "How do you know so much about her?" "I knew all about her miserable life, before I knew her; but I finally met her at my friend Oliphant's." "And it was the Oliphants who told you all her complainings. Mother never trusted them. It seems she was right--as usual." "The Oliphants told me nothing. I heard all her life with you from my foster-mother, McNab." "McNab, your foster-mother, David?" "McNab nursed, and mothered me. She was the only mother I ever had." "McNab! McNab! Now I begin to understand--and the Oliphants are your friends? And you stayed with them when in Glasgow?" "Always. John Oliphant and I have been acquainted since we were lads together." Then Robert burst into uncanny laughter and answered: "You are the man, David, I have been wanting to kill all the way across the Atlantic and across the continent." David looked at his brother full in the eyes, as men look at a wild animal, and asked slowly: "Why did you want to kill me, Robert? What harm had I done you?" "When I told mother Theodora had gone away from me, her first words were: 'Has that black-a-visored dandy, staying at the Oliphants', gone with her?' She added, that she had 'seen you with Theodora and that at parting you held her hand--and seemed very loth to leave her.'" "Mother was altogether wrong. I never was on any street in Glasgow with your wife. I was never seen in public with her anywhere. I respected your honor, as well as my own, and never by word, deed, or even thought wronged it." "Why should mother have told such a--lie?" "Because it is her nature to make all the trouble she can." "But you advised Theodora to leave me?" "Never. She acted entirely on her father's and mother's advice. But when I saw they had resolved to come to the United States, and knew nothing of the country, I told Mr. Newton about California, and advised him to make a home here. And as I and my daughters were travelling the same road, I did do all I could, to make the long journey as easy as possible. Could any man seeing a party like the inexperienced minister, and his invalid wife, daughter, and her child, do less than help them all he could? You owe me some thanks, Robert, when you get sane enough to pay your debt." "I do thank you, David, and what other debt do I owe you? Theodora had no money."