But would the fear of death act as a deterrent upon such an one as Hugh, who after committing so dishonorable a crime had lacked even the grace to make his confession of it soberly? It was doubtful: Hugh was without shame. From boyhood his career had been undistinguished by a single decent action; but on the contrary it had been steadily marred by vice and folly from the time when he had stolen an unused set of British North Borneo stamps from the locker of his best friend at school to this monstrous climax. Forgery! Great heavens, had he ever yet envisaged Hugh listening abjectly (or worse impudently) to the strictures of a scornful judge? Had he yet imagined the headlines in the press? _Brother of distinguished dramatist sent to penal servitude. Judge's scathing comments._ Mr. Touchwood breaks down in court. _Miss Janet Bond's production indefinitely postponed._ Surely Stephen would not proceed to extreme measures, but for the sake of their lifelong sympathy spare his old friend this humiliation; yet even as John reached this conclusion the chink-chink of the sparrows in the plane-tree sounded upon the air like the chink-chink of the picks on Dartmoor. Hugh a convict! It might well befall thus, if his jaunty demeanor hardened Stephen's heart. Suppose that Stephen should be seized with one of those moral crises that can only be relieved by making an example of somebody? Would it not be as well to go down at once to his place in the country and try to square matters, unembarrassed by Hugh's brazen impenitence? Or was it already too late? John could not bring himself to believe that his old friend would call in the police without warning him. Stephen had always had a generous disposition, and it might well be that rather than wound John's pride by the revelation of his brother's disgrace he had made up his mind to say nothing and to give Hugh another chance: that would be like Stephen. No, he should not intrude upon his week-end; though how he was going to pass the long Sunday unless he occupied himself with something more cheerful than his own thoughts he did not know. Should he visit James and Beatrice, and take them out to lunch with a Symphony Concert to follow? No, he should never be able to keep the secret of Hugh's crime, and James would inevitably wind up the discussion by making it seem as if it were entirely his own fault. Should he visit George and warn him that the less intercourse he had with Hugh the better, yes, and incidentally observe to George that he resented his impersonation of himself at Mrs. Fenton's? No, George's company would be as intolerable as his port. And the children? No, no, let them dress up with minds still untainted by their Uncle Hugh's shame; let them enact Robinson Crusoe and if they liked burn Halma House to the ground. What was unpremeditated arson compared with deliberate forgery? But if there was a genuine criminal streak in the Touchwoods, how was he ever again