And Dolly? Here on the instant I compromised with manliness and so admitted a weak place in my armor. Viewed through the dizzy mist of my own past and haunted suffering, this sweet and natural child stood out, such a tender vision of innocence that I dared not arrogate to myself the right of informing it with an evil that must be negative only in the first instance. How can I imperil her soul, I thought, by shattering at a blow the image, my image, that enlightens it? Sophistry--sophistry; for what true woman is the worse for learning that her idol is poor humanity after all--not a thing to worship, but a soul to help and protect--a soul thirsting for the deep wells of sympathy? Had I been wise to forestall my brother with all whose influence was upon my life a great misery might have been averted. In this instance I temporized, and the fatal cloud of calamity rose above the horizon. Why was it that, at the first, Dolly was much more in my mind than Zyp? That I cannot answer altogether, but so it was. The balance of my feelings was set no differently; yet, while it seemed quite right and proper that Zyp should estimate me at my dual personality, I shrunk with shuddering from the thought of Dolly knowing me as I knew myself. Perhaps it was that, for all my sense of passionate affinity to the wild creature once so part of my destinies, I recognized in the other the purer soul; that it was the love of the first I desired, the good will of the second. Perhaps, also, the recognition of this drove me on again to abide by my decision of the morning. It is useless to speculate now; for the little unhappy tale ended otherwise than as I had prefigured it. My day had begun with an omen as ghastly as its sequel was to be. CHAPTER XX. DUKE SPEAKS. That evening, in the luminous dusk of our sitting-room, I sat up and gave Duke my history. He would have stopped me at the outset, but I would brook no eccentric philosophy in the imperious fever of insistence that was my mood. I told him of all that related personally to me--my deed, my repentance--my brother’s exposure and renewed menaces; but to Zyp I only referred in such manner as to convey the impression that whatever influence she had once exerted over me was dead with boyhood and scarcely to be resurrected. That here I intentionally told a half-truth only, cowardly in the suspicion that the whole would be resented by my hearer on Dolly’s behalf, I cannot deny. I dared not commit myself to a policy of absolute confidence. When I had finished there was a silence, which I myself was forced to at length break. “Duke,” I said, “haven’t you a remark to make--no word of advice or rebuke?” “Not one, Renny. What concern have we with that past existence of yours?” “Oh, for heaven’s sake drop that nonsense for once in a way. It’s a very real trouble to me, whatever it is to you.” “Old man, you did and you repented in one day. The account up there must balance.” “You think it must?”