“No, ma’am, you are right there,” rejoined her son; “but, unfortunately, poor Arthur, almost maddened by grief and worry, and believing, as so many did, that the ‘high legal opinion’ (on which depended your continuance or otherwise in the disputing of my grandfather’s will) would be, when given, adverse to his interests, had not moral courage, or rather his pecuniary embarrassments were too great to admit of any longer delay; so he has gone, poor dear fellow.” And Horace drew a long troubled breath, for, like many others, he believed in the reality as well as the endurance of Arthur’s grief. “He has gone away, poor old boy, for years, he says; and--and old Dub told me this morning that Arthur was--a villain!” He was very young, that warm-hearted Horace, whose admiration of and love for his elder brother had truly grown with his growth and strengthened with his strength. For a long hour that morning he had stoutly fought Arthur’s battles with the old man, who, embittered by misfortune, and rendered thereby callous to the feelings of others, had dilated in no measured terms on his son-in-law’s utter want of principle, his selfishness, his mendacity, and his general and irretrievable unworthiness. It was in vain that Horace endeavoured to convince the obstinate and sorely-tried millionaire--the wealthy merchant-prince, whose gold had been unavailing to purchase an hour of life for the child of his old age--that Arthur’s offences were less dark than they appeared, and that excuses might, if sought for _with a will_, be found even for this self-exiled sinner. To all the arguments, all the recapitulations of the affectionate brother tending to throw a light on the manifest disadvantages attendant on poor Arthur’s “raising,” “old Dub” would only shake his gray head with the mournfullest of dismal gestures, and with a “Well, well,” which betokened alike a weariness of spirit and an absence of conviction that irritated Horace, while filling his heart with a pity beyond the reach of words. He was very young, as I before said, or not only would these things not have taken such a strong effect upon his temper and his mind, but it may be that, after the utterance of the last terrible word, he would not--an act which he was weak enough to commit--have flung himself upon a lounging-chair near him, and, burying his face in his hands, have striven hard, yet ineffectually, to conceal his emotion.