"Was it best to be a living lie--and all for the sake of honor? Honor, forsooth! Is it in perjury and robbery that honor lies?"
Paul strode about the room in silence, ashy pale, his face convulsed and ugly. Then his countenance softened, and his voice was broken as he said:
"Hugh, I have done you too much wrong already. Don't drive me into more; don't, don't, I beseech you!"
Hugh laughed lightly--a little trill that echoed in the silent room.
At that heartless sound all the soul in Paul Ritson seemed to freeze. No longer abashed, he lifted his head and put his foot down firmly.
"So be it," he said, and the cloud of anguish fell from his face. "I say it was to save our mother's good name that I consented to do what I did."
"Consented?" said Hugh, elevating his eyelids.
"You don't believe me? Very well; let it pass. You say my atonement is a mockery. Very well, let us say it is so. You say I have kept your place until it is no longer worth keeping. You mean that I have impoverished your estate. That is not true. And you know it is not true. If the land is mortgaged, you yourself have had the money!"
"And who had a better right to it?" said Hugh, and he laughed again.
Paul waved his hand, and gulped down the wrath that was rising.
"You have led me the life of the damned. You know well what bitter cup you have made me drink. If I have stood to the world as my father's heir, you have eaten up the inheritance If my father's house was mine, I was no more than a cipher in it. I have had the shadow, and you the substance. You have undermined me inch by inch!"
"And, meantime, I have been as secret as the grave," said Hugh, and once more he laughed lightly.
"God knows your purpose--you do nothing without one," said Paul. "But it is not I alone that have suffered. Do you think that all this has been going on under our mother's eyes without her seeing it?"
"When our father died, it was to be her honor or mine to die with him. That was the legacy of his sin, Heaven forgive him. I did not hesitate. But since that hour she has wasted away."
"Heaven knows, and Heaven will judge between you," said Paul. "She could bear it no longer." Paul's voice trembled as he added, "She's gone!"
There was a moment's silence. It was as if an angel went by weeping.