“I am glad of it, Walter; but what I was about to say was, that in this case, as well as in that of your marriage, it was not so much the error itself, as the want of frankness evidenced by your concealment of the matter. To be ashamed of having done wrong, is a proper feeling enough; but if it be not accompanied by the acknowledgment of the offence, it only shews one to be a coward, not a penitent. However, bad as your conduct has been in these two particulars, your mother would doubtless have done her best to forget, as she hastened in both instances to forgive it. But what she could _not_ forget, since it happened every day and every hour, were the quarrels between yourself and your brother.” Here the doctor turned sharply round on the young baronet, who had been hitherto listening, not, perhaps, without complacency, to the catalogue of his brother's misdeeds.--“I think, from what I have seen myself, Richard, that it is _you_ who are most in fault here. It is no use your looking proud and cold on me. I never cared three brass farthings for such airs, though they now and then misbecame even your poor father, who was worth a dozen of you. But this ridiculous assumption of superiority--founded upon mere accident of birth--naturally offends a high-spirited young man like Walter, who, if he was in your place, would certainly not make himself _odious_ in that way, however he might fail in other matters belonging to your position, which suffers nothing, I readily allow, in your able hands. That you have the administrative faculty in a high degree, sir, I concede; but this is not Russia, and if it were, you are not the Czar.” “No man in Mirk ever called me a tyrant, Dr Haldane.” “Perhaps no man ever dared, sir; but _I_ dare to say that a son whose conduct is such that his mother can no longer bear to witness it, is something worse than a tyrant. And be sure that if you continue so to behave, you will never see her face under this roof again.” “My God, but this is very horrible!” cried Sir Richard, striking his forehead. “I had no idea--I never dreamed that matters were coming to any such pass as this.--Walter--brother, did it seem to you that we were so very like to Cain and Abel?” The two young men embraced, perhaps for the first time in their lives. “Oh, when you tell her what you have seen, sir, do you think my mother will come back?” cried Richard, with the tears in his fine eyes. “I cannot say that; I am sure, however, that she will be greatly comforted. May I tell her that this is not a mere impulse of the moment, but that you are resolved from this time forth to be brothers indeed?” “I will do my very best, Walter.”