“I am a soldier, Richard. I haven’t your subtlety. I can only ask myself this question, ‘Does the oath I took on entering the army still bind me?’ I feel that it does. Incidentally, this course wrecks me, but if I do otherwise, my honor is wrecked.” There was a pause as the two brothers stood facing each other in the little room with its small windows filled with the dull glow of the dying December sun. They loved each other well and it seemed as if the hour of separation and doom were coming fast. Their intimacy was such that although their first parting had come when Neville was seventeen and Richard but sixteen, it had made not the smallest change in either. Each had many friends, but his intimates, except Philip Isabey, were found only under the roof tree of Harrowby. Both men grew pale as they stood silent and reflective. Then Richard said: “It is just as well to keep it from our father----” “And from our mother.” “Yes, by all means from our mother.” “Think how strange it is when I leave Harrowby this time, I don’t know whether I shall ever be permitted to come here again.” “At least, while you are here you are the favored son. Yes, Neville, mother loves you better than anything on earth and father is more in sympathy with you than with me because he loves military life. I am not thinking so much of you as I am of them. Great God, what a deathblow they must receive!” Richard turned and went into the next room. Neville walked to the window and looked out upon the sweet, familiar landscape now all red and gold in the declining afternoon. He peopled it with all the events of his boyhood and youth and through all was a vision of Angela in her little white frock--the spoiled darling of the family. Mrs. Tremaine was a good disciplinarian and her own three sons were brought up under wholesome restraint, but Angela, being fatherless, motherless, and penniless, had been treated with an indulgence which would have ruined an ordinary nature. Neville remembered with a smile that on the few occasions when Mrs. Tremaine had undertaken to administer some mild punishment to the child, Colonel Tremaine had always frowned and called Mrs. Tremaine “Sophia” during the rest of the day. And when Archie and Angela had got into mischief together, justice was sternly meted out to Archie while Angela was always let off with a promise to be good in the future. But under this excess of kindness Angela had developed as a peach ripens on the sunny side of a wall. Neville glanced through the open door and saw Richard, still in his riding clothes, sitting before the fire with his feet stretched out to the blaze. He was reflecting upon the blow which was to fall at Harrowby. Neville went into his brother’s room and, leaning against the mantelpiece, said: “When I go away, take care of Angela for me.” “I had forgotten all about Angela,” answered Richard frankly. “I was thinking of our father and mother.”