"Hendon, dear Hendon!" "There, it's no use to be so squeamish. If those last hadn't been paid, it would have been like throwing away all that had been paid before." "I did not know of this--I did not know of this!" "Don't, don't, dear! I couldn't help it. I used to feel as bad as you do; but this cursed poverty hardens a man. I fought against it; but Poynter was always after me, tempting me, standing dinners when I was as hungry as a hound; giving me wine and cigars. He has almost forced money on me lots of times; and at--at other times--when I've had a few glasses--I haven't refused it. It's all Janet's fault." "Hendon!" "Well, so it is!" cried the young fellow passionately. "If she hadn't thrown me over as she did--" "To save you from additional poverty." "No, it didn't; it made me desperate, and ready to drink when a chap like Poynter was jolly, and forced champagne on me. I was as proud as you are once, but my pride's about all gone!" "Hush! I will not hear you speak like that, Hendon, my own darling brother! For Janet's sake--" "She's nothing to me now. I was thrown over for some other fellow." "How dare you, sir! You know it is not true! Dear Janet! Working daily like a slave, and offering me her hard earnings when we were so pressed." "Did she--did she?" cried Hendon excitedly, and with his pale face flushing up. "There," cried Richmond half-laughingly, half-scornfully, "confess, sir, that a lying spirit was on your lips. Say you believe that of Janet and that you do not still love her, if you dare!" Hendon Chartley let his head fall into his hands, and bent down, with his shoulders heaving with the emotion he could not conceal, while his sister bent over him and laid her hand upon his head. He started up at her touch, seized and kissed her hand, and then, going to the side of the room, he laid his arm against the panel and his brow upon it, to stand talking there. "I can't help it, Rich dear," he groaned; "I feel like a brute beast sometimes, and as if I can never look her in the face again. I've drunk; I've gone wild in a kind of despair; and Poynter seems to have been always by me to egg me on, and get me under his thumb." "My own brother!" "Don't touch me, dear. I can't stop here. I'll do as Mark Heath did, and if Janet'll wait, perhaps some day I may come back to her a better man, and she may forgive me." There was a pause. "I don't believe anything of her but what is good and true; God bless her for a little darling--Why, Rich!" He turned sharply, for a low moan had escaped his sister, and he found that she had sunk into a chair, and was sobbing bitterly, with her face in her hands. "Rich darling, I did not mean it. What have I said?" "Nothing, nothing, dear; only you--you must not leave me." "But Mark Heath--Ah! what a fool I am!" he cried, catching his sister in his arms. "I did not think what I was saying; and, Rich dear, hold up, I don't believe the dear old boy is dead."