"
"A few minutes' talk with you will help me to pull myself together
again. Need we go into the house?"
"We sha'n't wake anybody."
They noiselessly went into the house, and passed along the hall until
they reached a small room behind the dining-room. The gas was lit,
burning low. There were biscuits, seltzer-water, and spirits on the
table.
Lord Evelyn was in the act of turning the gas higher, when he happened
to catch sight of his friend. He uttered a quick exclamation. Brand, who
sat down in a chair, was crying, with his hands over his face, like a
woman.
"Great heavens, what is it, Brand?"
That confession of weakness did not last long. Brand rose to his feet
impatiently, and took a turn or two up and down the small room.
"What is it? Well, I have received my sentence to-night, Evelyn. But it
isn't that--it is the thought of those I shall leave behind--Natalie,
and those boys of my sister's--if people were to find out after all that
they were related to me!"
He was looking at the things that presented themselves to his own mind;
he forgot that Evelyn could not understand; he almost forgot that he was
speaking aloud.
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