"Not again tonight. I want to know, Mark, how it was that chloroform was given to her!" "If we had not deemed it for the best, we should not have given it," was Mark's answer. "But--surely Dr. Davenal did not deem it would be for the best?" Mark turned and looked at him: a quick, sharp glance. "What do you know about it?" he asked. "I? I know nothing about it: I want to know," replied Oswald, thinking the remark strange. "I wish you would give me the full particulars, Mark. I cannot understand--I have a reason for not being able to understand--why chloroform should have been given to Lady Oswald----" "We use chloroform very much now," interrupted Mark. "Why it should have been given to _Lady Oswald_," went on Oswald, with pointed emphasis. "It was given to her as it is given to others--to deaden pain." "Who performed the operation?" "The doctor." There was a pause. When Oswald Cray broke it his voice was low, his manner hesitating. "Mark, will you pardon me if I ask you a peculiar question?--Do you believe from your very heart that when Dr. Davenal administered that chloroform to Lady Oswald he _did_ think it would be for the best?" Hesitating as Oswald's manner had been. Mark's was worse. He grew on a sudden flushed and embarrassed. "Won't you answer me, Mark?" "I--yes--of course we thought it would be for the best." "I asked, did _he_ think it?" Mark plunged into an untruth. Somewhat afraid of Oswald at the best of times, conscious that he was of a far higher standard in moral and intellectual excellence than himself, he desired to stand well with him, to enjoy his good opinion; and perhaps there was not a single man in Hallingham to whom Mark would not have preferred his unhappy mistake in all its wilfulness to become known than to his brother. They were also playing at cross-purposes: Oswald was seeking to learn how far Dr. Davenal had been to blame. Mark believed it was his own share of blame that was sought to be arrived at. "Yes, he thought it. Dr. Davenal would not use chloroform, or anything else, unless he believed it would be beneficial," rapidly went on Mark. "I never knew a man more successful in his treatment in a general way than he." But for all the apparent readiness of the words, they bore a certain evasion to Oswald's ears. "Tell me the truth, Mark; tell it me frankly," he rejoined. "Is there not some--some secret--I don't know what else to call it--connected with this business? Something _wrong_ about it!" For a moment Mark Cray had to deliberate. He was driven at bay by the straightforward questions of his brother. And his brother saw the hesitation. "Oswald, it is of no use to press me upon this matter. You will readily conceive how sore a one it is to myself and to Dr. Davenal. Had it been some poor rubbishing patient who had died through it, that poor stoker at the Infirmary for instance, it would not have been of so much account: but"----