"No, no, no!" said Chandos, vehemently; "my father might seduce, but he did not abandon to neglect and scorn. He might carry unhappiness--and he did--to many a hearth; but he did not, for the sake of a few pitiful pounds, cast off to poverty and misery the creature he had deluded. I know the whole story, Lockwood. This was the cause of the first bitter quarrel between my brother and myself. I was a boy of but seventeen then. But often I used to stop at the mill, when out shooting, and get a draught of good beer from the miller, or his pretty daughter. I was very fond of the girl, not with an evil fondness; for, as I have said, I was a boy then, and she was several years older than myself. But I thought her very beautiful and very good, blithe as a lark, and, to all appearance, innocent as an early summer morning. I saw her but two days before she went away; I saw her, also, on the very day of her death, when she returned, pale, haggard, in rags that hardly hid the proofs of her shame, to seek some compassion from him who had ruined and deserted her; ay, and driven her mad. It was I, who went in and told him she was in the park; and I did so fiercely enough, perhaps. He called me an impertinent fool; but went out to speak to her, while I ran hastily to my own room to bring her what little store of money I had; for I doubted my brother. What passed between them I do not well know; but, when I came to where they stood in the park, under the lime trees, not far from the high bank over the river, my brother's face was flushed and his look menacing; he was speaking fiercely and vehemently; and in a moment the girl turned from him and ran away up the bank. I followed to console and give her assistance, never dreaming of what was about to happen; but when I came up, I found some labourers, who were at work there, running down the little path to the river side. One of them had his coat and hat off, and, to my surprise, plunged into the water. But I need not tell you more of that part of the story; for you know it all already. I went back to the house, and straight to my father's room, and I told him all. There, perhaps, I was wrong; but indignation overpowered reflection, and I acted on the impulse of the moment. A terrible scene followed: my brother was sent for; my father reproached him bitterly for his ungenerous abandonment of the poor girl. He again turned his fury upon me, and struck me; and, boy as I was, I knocked him down at a blow before my father's face. Perhaps it is a just punishment for that violence, that to his generosity my fate in life was left. But yet it is very strange; for my father never forgave him; and me he was always fond of."