"On his own brother's. It was Rupert's word which convicted him, Rupert's word which has pulled down into the dust the name which through centuries and centuries has stood as high in honour and chivalry as any name in Europe. God forgive him! He only did his duty, but I cannot bear to look upon his face. Not that he wants to come here! He is a foreigner, and he lives in a foreign country. He is only half my son! It is Herbert whom I loved." "And where is he--Herbert?" I asked, fearfully. "Dead, I hope," he answered, sternly. "Since the day when I heard of this disgrace I have never looked upon his face. I never wish to look upon it again. For five-and-twenty years no one has dared to mention his name in my presence. I have cursed him." "But if he lives, he is your eldest son, Devereux will be his?" A passionate fire leaped into Sir Francis's face. "Never. If I thought that he lived and would come here when I died, I would fire Devereux Court, though I perished in it. I would cram it full to the windows with dynamite, and leave not one stone standing upon another, sooner than he should enter its doors the head of the Devereuxs. You don't understand this feeling perhaps, Arbuthnot," he went on, in a lower voice, which was still, however, vibrating with an intense passion; "some day I will take you into the picture gallery with me, and then perhaps you will understand it a little better." "I understand it now, Sir Francis," I told him: "but--but you are sure that your son Herbert was guilty? Think of the difference which his disgrace made to Rupert. It made him your heir, virtually your only son. If he was of a jealous disposition--Spanish people are, they say--the opportunity of getting rid of Herbert for ever and taking his place might have tempted him." I am convinced that the idea which I falteringly suggested to Sir Francis Devereux had never in the vaguest way presented itself to him before. Nor was this wonderful. Courteous and polished man of the world though he was, his nature had preserved all the innate and magnificent simplicity of the ideal soldier. Falsehood and meanness were so utterly beneath him that he never looked for them in others. They represented qualities of which he knew nothing. Any one could have cheated him, but if by chance detected, the crime would have seemed to him unpardonable, and from him they would never have won forgiveness. Herbert, the son whom he loved, had told him a lie--a court-martial of his fellow-soldiers had determined that it was so--and the crime had seemed to him scarcely less black than the cowardice. He had never doubted it for one reason, because the decision of a court-martial was to him infallible, and for another, because the idea of falsehood in connection with his other son had never been suggested to him, and save from another's lips could never have entered into his mind.