"I say then, don't let's leave our darling alone any longer. We shall have plenty of time to sip our wine of nights when we are alone, Jack. Let's go and let her pour out tea for us for what will pretty well be the last time." "Hah! yes!" said Sir John, rising slowly, "for pretty well the last time, Jem, and--and--" Sir John stopped short, for his voice broke, and the nerves in his fine florid face quivered. The major laid one hand upon his brother's shoulder in good old schoolboy fashion, caught his right hand in his own, and remained gripping it warmly--a strong, firm, sympathetic grip, full of brotherly feeling; but he spoke no word. Sir John was the first to break the silence. "Thank you, Jem," he said, "thank you, Jem. It's very weak and childish of me at my time of life, but it touches me home; it touches me the harder, too, that she is my only child; and--and--and, Jem, my lad, don't jump upon me--I must own it to you now, and I will--I feel that I am making a great mistake." "Thank God!" cried the major fervently. "Jem!" "I say, thank God," cried the major, "that you see the truth at last, Jack, before it is too late." "No, no, Jem," said Sir John sadly; "I have not seen it before it is too late. It is too late. We cannot alter it now. I am in honour bound. I cannot interfere." "Hang honour!" cried the major excitedly. "I'd give up all the honour in the world sooner than that girl's life should be blighted. Jack, Jack, my dear brother, we are old men now. We've had our fling of life. Let's think of our darling's happiness, and not of what the world thinks of us." "Too late, Jem! too late!" said Sir John. "I tell you it is not too late, Jack. Hang it man, I'll do anything. I'll challenge and shoot this confounded Rolph sooner than he shall have her." "Don't talk nonsense, Jem--don't talk nonsense. I've sounded Glynne well, and it is too late." "What! Do you mean to tell me that she would insist upon having him if you forbade it?" cried the major. "She thinks that she is bound to him, and that it is impossible to retract, even if she wished." "But doesn't she wish to run back from this wretched business?" "No, she does not wish to run back from her promise." "I don't believe it," cried the major, over whose white forehead the veins stood up like a pink network. "It is true all the same," said Sir John sadly. "If she had but expressed the slightest wish, I'd have seen Rolph, even at this eleventh hour, and, as he would have called it, the match should be off." "I will go and see her myself, Jack. I don't want to insult you, my dear brother, but she does look up to me and my opinion a little. Let me try and win her to my way of thinking, and let's get this wretched business stopped. She would never be happy, I am sure." "Go and see her, Jem, by all means." "You give me your leave?" "I do."