"Well, what do you want with me?" said Hubert doggedly, but horribly uneasy in his mind, for to his ordinary "prudent" disposition was now added the incubus of a tolerably guilty conscience. The place was hideously lonely withal, and his strange questioner looked powerful enough to have eaten him. "Good boy, Hubert--ha-ha-ha! Does papa know you're over here to-night, I wonder? But now--who were you expecting to find here?" "Be damned to you!" broke out the young fellow furiously. "I'm not going to stand your impudent catechising. Go to blazes and find out. Oh--by God!" For the stranger had turned his face full to the light, and, hiding the lower half of it, had removed his glasses. "--Roland!" And the two stood looking into each other's eyes in the moonlight, and both faces wore any other expression than that of mutual affection. Yet they were brothers. "Now that you have stepped into my shoes, Hubert, I hope they fit you," said the elder, drily. "Oh yes, thanks. Fit--very well indeed. More comfortable, by the bye, after a little further wear," was the reply, given with a cold, exasperating grin. "Which wear you won't get out of them, my friend, in all probability. So look out for speedy squalls." "Oh, shan't I?" replied the younger, his former fears dispelled, now that the mysterious stranger's identity lay disclosed. "Shan't I? Who will, then?" "Why, their rightful owner, of course. Myself, to wit." "Good dog, Brag," jeered the other contemptuously, jerking a stone across the mouth of Smugglers' Ladder. Better for him had he kept up his prudence a little longer. "And now, Roland, I don't come blundering in on top of your little arrangements up in Town, and should be very glad if you would kindly not interfere with mine here. In other words, by remaining in this sequestered spot you are spoiling my fun--if you have not already done so, that is." "Ah--now we are coming to it. Just answer me one question. What the deuce made you follow me over half the town one night last week, and then pretend you didn't recognise me?" "By Jove! It _was_ you, then! I wasn't sure, you see, and I couldn't well buttonhole another fellow on spec. Besides you were with someone," answered Hubert readily. But the other laughed drily. "Not bad for you, Hubert. Shouldn't wonder if you got your `silk' after all, one of these days, if you go on as you have begun. And now, isn't it a singular thing that a certain rumour should have started here at my expense, coincidently with that merry meeting of ours just by Westminster Bridge?" "Very odd," was the sneering rejoinder. "But the world's devilish small, you know, and it's astonishing how these little things will leak out." He ought to have known better. One glance at his brother's face, and he would have spoken in a very different tone. But he was talking half-turned away.