“Bram, Bram, what’s the matter with you? I’ve been panting and puffing after you for a thousand miles, and I can’t get you to turn that wooden head of yours. Come, I know what’s wrong with you, and I mean to have it out with you at once, and have done with it. So come along.” He had already hooked his arm within that of the unwilling Bram, who held himself stiffly, stubbornly, with an air which seemed to say--“Well, if you want it, you can have it.” And so, the one eager, defiant, impetuous, the other stolid and taciturn, the two men walked past the rows of mean cottages, past Bram’s own lodgings, and up to the very summit of the hill, where the ruined, patched-up, and re-ruined mansion was, and the disused coal shaft with its towering chimney. “And now,” cried Chris, suddenly stopping and swinging Bram round to face him in the darkness, “we are coming to an understanding.” “Very well, sir.” “Now, don’t ‘sir’ me, but tell me if you’re not ashamed of yourself----” “Me ashamed of myself! I like that!” cried Bram with a short laugh. “But that’s the way with you gentlemen. If you please, we’ll not have any talk about this, because honor and honesty don’t mean the same thing to you as to me.” “That’s a nasty one,” retorted Chris in his usual airy tone. “Now, look here, Bram, although you’re so entirely unreasonable that you don’t deserve it, I’m going to condescend to argue with you, and to prove to you the absurdity of your conduct in treating me like this.” “Like what, Mr Christian?” “Oh, you know. Don’t let’s waste time. You are angry because I’m marrying Miss Hibbs----” “No,” said Bram obstinately. “I’m not angry with you for marrying Miss Hibbs. I’m angry because you’re not marrying the girl you love, the girl you’ve taught to love you.” “Same thing, Bram. I can’t marry them both, you know.” Bram shook his arm free angrily. “Mr. Christian, we won’t talk about this no more,” said he in a voice which was hoarse, and strained, and unlike his own. “I might say things I shouldn’t like to. Let me go, sir; let me go home, and do you go home and leave me alone.” “No, I won’t leave you till we’ve threshed the matter out. Be reasonable, Bram. You know as well as I do that I’m dependent on my father----” “You knew that all along. But you said, you told me----” “I told you that I wanted to marry my cousin Claire. Well, so I did. But my father wouldn’t hear of it; apart from the objection he has to the marriage of cousins----” “That’s new, that is,” put in Bram shortly. “Apart from that, I say, he wouldn’t have anything to say to the match for a dozen reasons. You know that. And, knowing how I’m placed, it is highly ridiculous of you to make all this fuss, especially as you, no doubt, intend to use the opportunity to cut in yourself.” His tone changed, and Bram detected real pique, real jealousy in these last words. Bram heard this in dead silence. “You do, eh?” went on Chris more sharply.