“I hope I have been something more than a brother. Brothers are not exactly my idea of a hilariously good time. Shall we drive on up to our little lake?” “Anywhere you please. It is such a joy to be out of the shop and outdoors on a day like this that places don’t matter in the least.” Accordingly, he repeated the programme of the former excursion, hitching the mare among the cottonwoods on the shore of the tiny highland lake, and spreading the lap-robe on the hillside where they had sat once before to revel in the glorious view of sky-pitched mountains and swelling plain. For a time they spoke of nothing but the view; but that was only because Bromley was waiting for his opening. It came when Jean said: “The other time we sat here it was to talk about Philip. Do you see much of him now?” “Not very much.” Then he took his courage firmly in hand: “I am afraid we shall have to forget Philip, in a way, Jean. Do you think you can do that?” “Why should we forget him?” “You haven’t answered my question.” “You can’t always forget people just because you might want--because it might be best to forget them.” “But--what if they deliberately walk out of the picture?” She looked up quickly, and in the pools of the dark eyes there was the shock of a fear realized. “Philip has done that?” she asked. He nodded sorrowfully. “That is what it amounts to. You remember what you once said: that he might do the irrevocable thing that would cut him off from us for good and all?” “I remember.” “Well, it is done; or the same as done.” She drew a quick breath. “Tell me, Harry.” “I will, but only because you’d have to know it anyhow, a little later. This morning he took out a marriage license for himself and a--a--I can’t name the woman for you, Jean. I suppose they are married by this time. Will you believe me when I say that I did everything I could think of to prevent it?” There was no answer to this, and when he looked aside at her again he saw that she was crying quietly, and his heart grew hot. “Don’t cry,” he broke out almost roughly. “He isn’t worth it, Jean.” “Yes, he is,” she faltered. “You don’t know him as I do, Harry; though you have been more to him and closer to him than I ever could be. _I_ know why he has done this.” “Well, I guess I do, too,” he admitted grudgingly. “I must talk plainly to you this once, Jean, if I never do again. The woman is--oh, well, we’ll say she is pretty nearly everything she ought not to be; and Philip thinks and says that he can go no lower than he has already gone. What he said to me when I wrestled with him was this: ‘I’m merely trying to give another human being, to whose plane I have sunk myself, a chance for the only redemption that can ever come to her--in this life.’ And I’ll do him this much justice: he didn’t know--because I couldn’t tell him--how much it was going to hurt you.”