‘Give the boy a profession, and--well, some hundreds a year. He’s bright and clever, and with that income, and a calling in his fingers, if he can’t make his way in the world, ’tis a pity.’ ‘A profession!’ said Kilpatrick musingly. ‘I don’t know what the boy’s fit for, unless it’s for a soldier or a sailor.’ ‘Bad pay and poor prospects,’ said Conseltine. ‘Why not the Church?’ His lordship went off into a sudden cackle of laughter. ‘The Church! Fancy Desmond a priest! Faith, ’twould be a pretty parish that he had charge of!’ ‘The bar?’ suggested his brother. ‘No; Desmond hates lawyers almost as much as Blake himself--it’s in the blood, I suppose--I’m none too fond of them myself. I’ll think it over, Dick, I’ll think it over; don’t bother me about it any more at present. Nothing shall be done without your knowledge and--without your knowledge, at all events.’ ‘You are tired?’ asked Conseltine. ‘Yes, tired to death.’ ‘Well, I’ll leave you to yourself. Goodnight; sleep well, and you’ll be as sound as a trout in the morning. I’ll send up Peebles to help you to undress.’ He went; and Kilpatrick, rising from his seat, began to pace the room from end to end among the gathering shadows. ‘What the devil makes Dick Conseltine so tender all of a sudden?’ he asked himself. ‘Dictate of nature and justice, indeed! He hates the boy like poison, that I’m sure of. I can see it in his eye, sly and smooth as he is, every time he looks at him; and so does that bull-headed young fool, his son. It’s natural, I suppose. Faith, then, one sees the hatred that money breeds--brother hating brother, father hating son, son father; the meanness, lying, ingratitude, intriguing; I’d rather be the poorest peasant on my estate. I’d rather be Desmond, poor boy; he knows his friends, at least. Nobody cajoles and flatters him.’ He fell silent again, and paced the room with a slower step. ‘Poor Moya! Gad! how it all comes back to me! If she had been only a little more of a lady, just a shade more possible as my wife! She was a lady in heart and feeling; the truest I ever met, I think. I threw away a jewel when I cast her off--nineteen years ago. ‘Nineteen years ago this month, and it is all as clear and vivid as if it had happened yesterday. Poor girl! I can see her face now as it was when I broke the secret to her. It will haunt me till I die, and after, if all tales are true. I was a scoundrel! It was a vile business. There are moments when I think Peebles is right: that it is my plain duty to let family considerations slide, own the boy, and leave him all. It wrings my heart to see him, handsome, manly, courageous, loved by everybody--my son! my own son!--and then look at that long-shanked cub of Dick’s, and think that he, Desmond, is worth a million of him, worth a planetful of the stupid, ugly cur. How like his mother he is! Sometimes he frightens me; it is as if the dead came out of the grave to accuse me.’