"No; but I was very young, and very easily flattered. And Reginald, your brother, whom I'd known so long--well, for one thing, he did not ask me to marry him, and he was poor, compared with John Dent, and I loved riches. And he had done nothing, and I thought I loved a hero. He only hung about the court, and was gay and a spendthrift, and my father did not like him, nor my brother. And one day, Dick, someone told me my brother, Lord Byng, had insulted Reginald Chester. And the next day, when I was sitting at work in my room in my father's house in London, the door flew open, and Philip rushed in. 'My Lady, my Lady!' he cried, 'they are murdering your brother!' I ran down into the hall, and there stood Reginald Chester, his sword in his hand, and at his feet, quite dead, my poor young brother. Ah, Dick! I accused Reginald, in my anger and grief, of killing Byng. He was such a child, I told him, he should have considered his years and scorned to take offence at his sayings. He had sworn to me once always to be patient with Byng. And I called him a liar, then, and a coward to fight such a boy, and I--Oh, I know not what I said--everything cruel! Last of all, I drew from my bosom and flung at his feet a boyish gift he'd given me, the only thing he'd ever given me, when we were children. He had said then 'twas a pledge of his love for me. He picked it up in silence, threw down his sword, and said one thing, very bitter and terrible. I bent over my brother. I never heard him go, Dick; and I have never seen him since." "He's dead now," said Dick, looking gravely before him; "but if he did that, I'll never forgive him! Never!" She laid her hand over his lips. "He did not do it, Dickie. I would not have told you about him if so." "Who, then?" "John Dent; quite accidentally, not deliberately. Byng and Reginald had made friends, and John Dent, annoyed by it, taunted my brother with fearing Reginald's sword. Byng sprang at him in anger. In self-defence John threw him back. He fell with his head against a stone table, and was killed so, Dickie. There was no other wound on him. It was just so." "And my brother?" Dick said. "He went abroad--far away. We none of us saw him any more." "Did people think he had done it? Was that why he went away?" "Oh, no, Dick! A gentleman who was with them saw the whole thing, and told us. Your brother had drawn on John Dent, to avenge Byng. John Dent had but just hurried out of the hall when I came down the stairs thither." "Why did he go away, then?" Lady Dorothy looked away across the garden to the sky. "I sent him away, Dick," she said. Dick gathered that Reginald had gone away because of the things Lady Dorothy had said to him in the hall. After a long silence, he said gently: "And then you were sorry?" "Then and ever since," she replied. "And he never came back?" "Never. He would not, you know."