He wanted to speak rather coldly, but he could not. The sight of his friend, so lately recovered from a dangerous illness, and even now evidently suffering from its effects, was too much for him. Every word of that short speech seemed to bubble up from his heart. Christian, perhaps even more touched than he, and certainly, by reason of his recent illness, less able to conceal his feelings, broke into a sob. “They told me--my father told me, you wouldn’t be,” said he, trying to laugh. “Said you came up to the house with the intention of punching my head, but that you relented, and consented to put off the gentle chastisement until I was on my feet again. Oh, Bram, Bram, for shame! When you knew I was always a _mauvais sujet_ too, and never pretended to be anything else!” “But, Mr. Christian,” began Bram, who felt that he was choking, that the passions of love for Claire and loyalty to the friend to whom he owed his rise in life were tearing at his heartstrings, “when a woman----” Chris interrupted him, placing one rather tremulous hand lightly on his shoulder. “My dear boy, d---- the women! Oh, don’t look shocked when I say d---- the women, because I speak from conviction, and a man’s convictions should be respected, especially when he speaks, as I do, from actual experience. I say d---- the women; and, moreover, I say that until you can say d---- the women too, you are incapable of any friendship that is worthy of the name. There! Now, go home, and ponder those words; for they are words of wisdom!” And Chris, giving him a familiar, affectionate push towards the door of the room he had been about to enter, passed on. The news of Christian’s return to the office spread quickly, and was received with great personal satisfaction throughout the works, where the easy, pleasant manners of the “guv’nor’s” son had made him a universal favorite. The tidings flew beyond the works, too, for Joan told Bram that Mr. Biron and his daughter had heard of Christian’s return, and added that the mention of his name had been received by Claire in dead, blank silence. “Poor lass! She looked that queer when she heard it,” said Joan. Bram, as usual, said nothing. The conflict between his feeling towards Claire and his feeling towards Christian grew hourly more acute. “She wouldn’t hear what Mr. Biron had to say,” pursued Joan. “But she joost oop and went to her room, and Ah saw no more of her till Ah coom away. But she were that white! Ah wished she’d talk more, or else cry more; Ah doan’t like them pains as you doan’t hear nothing abaht. They gnaw, they do! It’d be better for her to go abaht calling folks names, like Meg!” But this reference to Meg Tyzack in the same breath with Claire wounded Bram, who turned away quickly. Surely the life of patient self-sacrifice she was leading in constant attendance upon her selfish father was ample atonement for the error into which she had been driven.