"Then I tell you, as man to man, that until this afternoon I had no suspicion that your feelings towards Viviette were deeper than those of an elder brother." Dick laughed bitterly. "You couldn't conceive a clod like me falling in love. Well?" "That's beside the question," said Austin. "I did not behave dishonourably towards you. I came down. I fell in love with Viviette. How could I help it? How could I help loving her? How could I help telling her so? But she is young and innocent, and her heart is her own yet. Tell me--man to man--dare you say that you have won it or that I have won it?" "What's the good of talking?" said Dick, relapsing into his sullen mood. "If I go she is yours. But I won't go." Austin rose again and laid his hand on his brother's arm. "Dick. If I give her up, will you obey my conditions?" "You give her up voluntarily? Why should you?" "A damnable thing was done this afternoon," said Austin. "I see I had my share in it, and I as well as you have to make reparation. Man alive! You are my brother," he cried with an outburst of feeling. "The nearest thing in the world to me. Do you think I could rest happy with the knowledge that a murderous devil is always in your heart, and that it's in my power to--to exorcise it? Do you think the cost matters? Come. Shall we make this bargain? Yes or no?" "It's easy for you to promise," said Dick. "But when I am gone, how can you resist?" Austin hesitated for a moment, biting his lips. Then, with the air of a man who makes an irrevocable step in life, he crossed the room and rang the bell. "Ask Mrs. Holroyd if she will have the kindness to come here for a minute," he said to the servant. Dick regarded him wonderingly. "What has Mrs. Holroyd to do with our affairs?" "You'll see," said Austin, and there was silence between them till Katherine came. She looked from one joyless face to the other, and sat without a word on the chair that Austin placed for her. Her woman's intuition divined a sequel to the afternoon's drama. Some of it she had already learned. For, going earlier into Viviette's room, she had found her white and shaken, still disordered in hair and dress as Dick had left her; and Viviette had sobbed on her bosom and told her with some incoherence that the monkey had at last hit the lyddite shell in the wrong place, and that it was all over with the monkey. So, before Austin spoke, she half divined why he had summoned her. Her heart throbbed painfully. "Dick and I," said Austin, "have been talking of serious matters, and we need your help." She smiled wanly. "I'll do whatever I can, Austin." "You said this afternoon you would do anything I asked you. Do you remember?" "Yes, I said so--and I meant it." "You said it in reply to my question whether you would accept me if I asked you to marry me." Dick started from the sullen stupor into which he had fallen and listened with perplexed interest.