‘And now,’ said she, ‘you have been fed and warmed, and I have heard your story, and now it’s high time to call your brother.’ ‘Oh!’ cried John, chap-fallen; ‘do you think that absolutely necessary?’ ‘_I_ can’t keep you here; I am a stranger,’ said she. ‘Do you want to run away again? I thought you had enough of that.’ He bowed his head under the reproof. She despised him, he reflected, as he sat once more alone; a monstrous thing for a woman to despise a man; and strangest of all, she seemed to like him. Would his brother despise him, too? And would his brother like him? And presently the brother appeared, under Flora’s escort; and, standing afar off beside the doorway, eyed the hero of this tale. ‘So this is you?’ he said, at length. ‘Yes, Alick, it’s me—it’s John,’ replied the elder brother, feebly. ‘And how did you get in here?’ inquired the younger. ‘Oh, I had my pass-key,’ says John. ‘The deuce you had!’ said Alexander. ‘Ah, you lived in a better world! There are no pass-keys going now.’ ‘Well, father was always averse to them,’ sighed John. And the conversation then broke down, and the brothers looked askance at one another in silence. ‘Well, and what the devil are we to do?’ said Alexander. ‘I suppose if the authorities got wind of you, you would be taken up?’ ‘It depends on whether they’ve found the body or not,’ returned John. ‘And then there’s that cabman, to be sure!’ ‘Oh, bother the body!’ said Alexander. ‘I mean about the other thing. That’s serious.’ ‘Is that what my father spoke about?’ asked John. ‘I don’t even know what it is.’ ‘About your robbing your bank in California, of course,’ replied Alexander. It was plain, from Flora’s face, that this was the first she had heard of it; it was plainer still, from John’s, that he was innocent. ‘I!’ he exclaimed. ‘I rob my bank! My God! Flora, this is too much; even you must allow that.’ ‘Meaning you didn’t?’ asked Alexander. ‘I never robbed a soul in all my days,’ cried John: ‘except my father, if you call that robbery; and I brought him back the money in this room, and he wouldn’t even take it!’ ‘Look here, John,’ said his brother, ‘let us have no misunderstanding upon this. Macewen saw my father; he told him a bank you had worked for in San Francisco was wiring over the habitable globe to have you collared—that it was supposed you had nailed thousands; and it was dead certain you had nailed three hundred. So Macewen said, and I wish you would be careful how you answer. I may tell you also, that your father paid the three hundred on the spot.’