“Mother,” he said almost sternly, “for once in my life I will speak to you openly. It will be the first time and the last; for you are not one, or I am greatly mistaken, to forgive the words that I shall use. From our childhood you never, _never_ treated us as if you loved us. As a little fellow, so little, I remember, that I could scarcely reach the table with my hand--as a small boy--troublesome, I daresay, as all young children are, but not _more_ depraved and wicked than others--I longed--O, _how_ I used to long!--for love and tenderness from you. When I saw other mothers kiss and pet their children, holding them upon their knees, and looking with delight and pride upon their play and laughter, I can never describe to you the bitter envy that I felt, and with what a sore, sad heart I thought upon the difference between them and me! And it was the same with all of us. We have compared notes many times since those days, and have told each other--we four children, whom my father left a legacy to you; ah, shall I ever forget his dying words?--that we only wanted love, only the common tenderness shown by all God’s creatures to their young, and that, having it, we would return it fifty, ay, a hundredfold! But--and well you know it, mother--we had it not, that love we yearned for; and failing the boon we craved, we all went”--and he smiled bitterly--“more or less, and in different ways, according to our respective powers and sexes, to the bad. There is Arthur, poor dear Atty,” and his lip quivered painfully, “gone, without a word--excepting that he confessed some things to that poor broken-hearted old man which would make your cheek, ma’am, grow red with shame, although you love him not, to hear of. It seems, he was reduced--I and some others think that the fault was not _quite_ all his own--to do some ugly thing which, but for the law-business of which you speak so lightly, need never have been known, and--” “Ah, I understand,” put in Lady Millicent, endeavouring to hide her confusion and annoyance under a mask of carelessness and sarcasm. “Difficulties in the way of raising money, eh? But that is over now,” she added bitterly, “and I suppose that your brother need not, as matters now stand, fly the country because he does not happen to be able to pay his bills.”