"No. I had an odd letter from my lawyers yesterday about some mortgage that Sir Thomas Walbrook is interested in, but I haven't gone into the matter yet. No, not money,--I wish it were only that!" "What then? You've not gone and mixed yourself up with any--any connection--you know what I mean--that you feel it necessary to break off before you propose to Miss Lambert?" "Not I, dear old friend; nothing of the sort. Though my trouble is caused by what I think the necessity of giving a full explanation on a very difficult and delicate matter, before I ask Grace to become my wife." "In the name of fortune, what is it, then?" asked Lord Sandilands. "Simply this," said Miles, his face resuming its grave expression; "you know that my father's life was overshadowed and his whole mental peace destroyed, at a period when he might reasonably have looked forward to much future enjoyment, by the conduct of my younger brother, Geoffrey?" "Ah! now I begin to comprehend--" "Wait, and hear me out. That conduct, the nature of which I never could learn, and do not know at this moment, blighted my father's life, and changed him from an open-hearted, frank, genial man, into a silent and reserved valetudinarian. For years and years Geoffrey's name was never mentioned in our house. I was brought up under strict orders never to inquire about him, directly or indirectly; and those orders I obeyed to the letter. Only when my father was on his deathbed--you recollect my being telegraphed for from your house, where I was staying? I spoke of Geoffrey. I asked why he had been sent away, what he had done--" "Your father did not tell you?" interrupted Lord Sandilands eagerly. "He did not, he would not. It was just before he expired; his physical prostration was great; all he could say was that Geoffrey was, and for ever must be, dead to me. He implored me, he commanded me with his dying breath, if ever I met my brother to shun him, to fly from him, to let nothing earthly induce me to know him or acknowledge him." "Your poor father was right," said Lord Sandilands; "he could have said nothing else." "Do you justify my father's severity?" cried Miles in astonishment. "Do you hold that he was right in dying in anger with one of his own children, and in bequeathing his anger to me, the brother of the man whom in his wrath he thus harmed?" "I do; I do indeed." "Do you tell me that any crime not punishable by law could justify such a sentence?--a sentence of excommunication from his home, from family love, from--" "Stay, stay, Miles. Tell me, how has this subject cropped up just now? What has brought it into your thoughts?" "Because, as a man of honour, I feel that I ought to tell Miss Lambert something at least--as much as I know--of the story before I ask her to be my wife. Because I would fain have told her that my father was harsh and severe to a degree in his conduct to Geoffrey."