“What I was about to remark,” pursued Mrs. Dengelton, choosing her words carefully, “was that, when my brothers, Rudolph and Austin, came home,—the first from his regiment, the second from college,—they both fell in love with Rose Silverton, whose father was a retired captain in the army. Rudolph, as you know, Rector, was the heir to Roylands, and Captain Silverton naturally wanted Rose to marry him, as the match was such a good one. She, however, preferred Austin.” “Love _versus_ Money, and Love was triumphant,” said Maurice, smiling. “If you put it like that, I suppose it was,” replied his aunt frigidly. “Well, Rose, as I have said, flirted considerably with Rudolph, though she loved my brother Austin best. Oh, you need not shake your head, Rector—Rose did flirt!” “My dear aunt, spare the dead,” observed Maurice, with a groan, for this old lady was really terrible with her malignant tongue. “I hope I am too good a churchwoman to speak evil of any one, dead or alive,” said Mrs. Dengelton, with dignity. “But I will make no further remarks if they are so displeasing to you, though why they should be displeasing I cannot conceive. Well, to gratify her father, Rose appeared to favor Rudolph, but in secret she met Austin. Such duplicity! I beg your pardon, Maurice, but it was duplicity.” The Rector sighed, and Mrs. Dengelton looked curiously at him, as if she guessed the meaning of the sigh, then resumed her story without commenting thereon, to Carriston’s evident relief. “Rudolph in some way came to hear of these stolen meetings, and surprised Austin walking with Rose one June evening. The brothers came, I regret to say, to blows, while Rose looked on in horror. Austin, being the younger and weaker, could not stand against the furious onslaught of Rudolph, who stunned him with a blow, then, thinking he had killed him, kissed Rose, who had fainted, and disappeared forever. He returned to London, left the army, and went away to the East, with a considerable sum of money which he inherited from his mother.” “And my father and mother?” asked Maurice breathlessly. “Were found by some laborers insensible; the one from fear, the other from the blow given to him by his brother. They were taken to their respective homes, and when Austin got well again, he married Rose in due course. I believe your father and mother were very happy in their married life, Maurice, but they were singularly unfortunate in the fate of their children. Your brothers and sisters, four of them born during the early period of the marriage, all died; and you, who came into the world nearly twenty years after the marriage, were the only child who lived.” “And how long ago did all this happen, aunt?” “Cannot you think it out for yourself?” said Mrs. Dengelton tartly. “You are now thirty-five; you were born—let me see—about fifteen years after the marriage, so altogether Rudolph disappeared fifty years ago.” “And has not been heard of since?”