“You cannot coax back when dying the man you have cast out,” he said gently. “Nor would it soothe your pride if he should expire on your hearth. You think I am disgraced, accursed. You perhaps even hate me.” “I think I do,” breathed Joseph heavily. Luc rose. “Then leave me. I have so little time left for anything; none at all for hate. I want to die alone. Go your way, Joseph. When I left Aix something broke that is past mending.” “I think the Devil possesses you,” cried Joseph. “But you are Luc de Clapiers, and you shall not live in beggary among the scum of Paris.” “I _am_ Luc de Clapiers,” replied the Marquis--“remember it. I am not what I look, but what I was born: a gentleman of quality, who upholds his own honour--as well here as in Aix, as well here as in Bohemia. Be content; I shall not disgrace you.” Joseph half laughed. “Disgrace! I think you deny God?” “And the Devil--and all you believe, perhaps, Joseph,”--his voice had an exalted yet tender note,--“but maybe I shall sleep well just the same in my unconsecrated grave.” The younger man stepped back, clenched his strong right hand, and struck his breast. “For the honour of our nobility, for the respect you once bore our mother, in the name of the God you outrage, I conjure you come with me. Let a priest shrive you----” Luc broke in with a sudden flash of vitality. “Do you think I am going to be false to all I believe--now? Now,”--he dropped into his chair again; his strength was slipping from him, but he beat the words out with a great labour of his breath,--“now--when--I have--so nearly won?” “You! You who have failed in everything you have undertaken!” Luc put a thin, trembling hand on the book--a small humble volume--and the loose sheets of paper lying on the table. “I have administered to the truth within me,” he said, and, still keeping his hand on the book, he forced himself to raise his head, that had sunk, through sheer bodily weakness, into his bosom, until he looked his brother in the face. “You have dishonoured a noble house,” said Joseph hoarsely; “and I shall never forgive you, dead or living.” “Ah!” answered Luc softly, regretfully. “The pity of such words as those!” His head drooped a little again. “The pity,” he added wistfully, “of all our fierce passions, our curses, our hatreds, our wrongs to one another, when there is so little any of us can do, and so little time to do it in. And we waste our few chances. Do not hate me--Joseph. I shall always love you.” The younger brother was silent. It might be his heart prompted him to forgive; that old affection stirred. But the wrong against his religion, his pride, his order was too strong; the offences he raged against were unforgivable; the wrath, the disgust, the shame he had nourished in his heart since Luc’s departure from Aix were rather fanned than mollified by the sight of the dying man who had aroused these emotions. Luc took advantage of his silence to speak again.