University of Virginia Library

38. CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE MEETING OF THE BROTHERS.

Our rover lay waiting for some time impatiently beneath his
tree. The cassique was necessarily delayed by the condition of
Olive. It was scarcely possible that he should leave her before
she showed signs of recovery. Even Harry Berkeley could allow
for this in spite of his impatience. But he was not the less
impatient for the allowance. His blood and brain were in wild
confusion.

At length the cassique appeared in sight, slowly moving toward
him. We must not, in this place, interrupt the progress of events,
by reporting the trying scene of Olive's recovery from insensibility.
We must give ourselves wholly to the things before us.

As Harry saw his brother approach, he rose eagerly to his feet,
but did not advance, till he beheld the other pick up his sword.
He had not sheathed his own; and now, poising it lightly in his
grasp, he strode a few paces forward, diminishing the distance
between them.

The cassique beheld the action of his brother, and his countenance
assumed a sadder aspect than before. He paused — deliberately
sheathed his own sword, and came forward, presenting his
hand.

Harry gazed sternly on his face; and, speaking only to the
action of the other, said, in the harshest accents: —

“Better take your weapon in it, Edward Berkeley. Our hands
can never again meet ungloved. It is too late for such peaceful
signs. You have passed the bounds of amnesty. We must try
the last issues!”

“I know not why it should be so, Harry, my brother.”

“You know not! It is then strange enough that you should
know anything. But, before we speak of discord, first tell me,
what of her — what of Olive — the woman you are murdering!
Does she live? Is she recovered?”

“She recovers — she lives.”

“Ah! God be praised for that! I shall not, then, have her
murder, as well as my own wrongs, to avenge!”

“If this is to be taken into the account, Harry,” said the other,
sadly enough, “I know not how long it will be before you may
make your reckoning complete. Olive Berkeley recovers from
her swoon, it is true; she lives, for the present: but I must not
disguise it from you, as I do not from myself, that she can not live
very long. The strings of life are snapping, one by one. Soon
they will vibrate no longer! She will die, Harry Berkeley —
nothing now can save her!”

“And with these tidings on your lips, you think that I will
take your hand? That I will grasp with friendship the hand of
him who has been her murderer! Edward Berkeley, robber of
thy brother, traitorous and dishonest kinsman, it was not enough
that thou shouldst carry off all the wealth of thy father, as the
first-born to the inheritance; that I, thy brother, should be driven
abroad to perilous venture upon the high seas, in search of fortune;
but thou must glide in between me and happiness — between
my heart and its one treasure — and rob me of that which
alone could suffice to make my home precious! Draw, sir, and
let your manhood show itself equal to your malice!”

Deep crimson was the flush that suddenly passed over the
cheeks and forehead of the cassique as he listened to this language.

But the flush was succeeded by a still more decided pallor.
His lips were, for a moment, sternly compressed, as if to subdue
all efforts of the rising passion in his blood. When he spoke, he
had obtained a great triumph over himself. His tones were
measured, his words and utterance quite calm.

“These are fearful charges, my brother; terrible, indeed, were
they true.”

“And are they not true? Are you not in possession of one
who was pledged to me, in life and death; and is she not dying
in your hands? Couple the cause with the effect; note the history,
step by step, as you may, with any honest logic, and the
truth is patent. True! Do you dare venture to deny the truth?”

“It is new to me, Harry Berkeley, to listen to such language,
from any lips.”

“Why listen, then? The sword—”

“There had been a season, Harry, when even you should not
have challenged me to the sword without the sword's answer.
But now—”

“Ah! now! What is it now subdues your courage? What,
but your conscience? Edward Berkeley, good swordsman as you
are, in such a cause you would cross my weapon only to fate.”

“Perhaps; and yet I know not that. But what have I to do
with vain boasting, or equally vain reply to your boast, when such
a fate as now threatens, hangs over yonder dwelling?”

“Ay!” answered the other, gloomily. “It may well rouse
conscience and challenge fear in the bosom of him to whom it is
all due.”

“Due to me, indeed! But not knowingly, not willingly, as
Heaven looks down upon us now! Harry Berkeley, impatient
brother of mine, the greatest of my pangs now, after the one which
follows that impending fate, is, that I should hear such language
from your lips; listen to such accusations; and be taught that they
are made by one who, after a twenty years' experience, should
know me so little as to entertain such fancies. True! God of
heaven! has the brother of my childhood and happy youth —
when we were both happy — has he yet to learn the qualities of
one with whom he has slept and sported for nearly twenty years?
This is my great regret; the very dagger to my heart of pride.
What! have I been so utterly void of demonstration, or character,
that, without question, you should think of me such thoughts?”

“Ah! you declaim it well! But this will never answer. Say,
are you not here, and in possession of one whom you know to
have been my betrothed?”

“I know it now! I knew it not, a month ago.”

“Ha! impossible! I happen to know better. This tale will
never answer. Enough; I say the thing is impossible.”

“Why, yes, Harry; it must be impossible to you, in such a
mood as yours, when you make it my offence that I was born before
you; that, by law, I have a certain family inheritance. When
such are my imputed offences, what hope have I that any proofs
would satisfy my accuser? He forgets that he has shared with
me the profits of this very inheritance; that my purse has ever
been his own; that his first outfits for fortune were under my advances
of money; and that I have never said him `Nay,' when
from boyhood to manhood he had a craving or a plan, a need or
a pleasure, which implied the free use of money. May God curse
the wealth which is to deprive me of a brother's faith — the affections
of a kinsman!”

“Now, by my soul, Edward Berkeley, but it confirms all my
belief in your crime, when you plead your benefits, your bounty,
in justification of your wrong-doing.”

“Plead? My benefits! my bounty!”

“Ay, plead! what else? You tell me of your purse, and how
I shared it; and how, as boy and youth, I had wants and appetites,
to which your wealth has ministered. And this, in reply to
my charge that you had basely stolen from me the one only jewel
to which, in all my poverty, I had clung as keenly as to life. She
was my life! I have had none since!”

Again the warm crimson overspread the cheeks of the cassique.
Indignation and mortification strove together in the expression of
his face.

“O Harry Berkeley,” he said, “this is very, very cruel. How
vexatiously do you pervert my speech!”

“Yes; you remind me of your benefits — of what I owe you!
That is, you have given money to a boy who wanted toys — to a
youth who had appetites for pleasure; you have given freely, ungrudgingly;
and you tell him so! It is true; you have so given.
But, thank Heaven, I am able to 'quite you the amount of this
giving, ten times told! You shall have it, every farthing.”

“Harry! Harry!”

“But, what did I not give you, in return for these benefits —
this liberal allowance of money? I gave you faith, sir — the generous
faith of a most unselfish boyhood. I opened to you all my

heart; I confided freely in yours. You had, from me, the fondest
deference, the most uncalculating confidence, the most brotherly
love, unmixed with envy, jealousy, or any other baser metal
of the passions. Your money did not buy these! It was your
love, your truth, your equal confidence and faith. And where
were these when you wronged my absence? Suppose me worthless,
ungrateful for all your gifts, forgetful of your benefits: should
this justify you in the usurpation of my rights?”

“I did not! By the great God —”

“By all the gods, you did! You seized the moment of my
greatest misfortune — my wreck upon the seas, and the dreary
absence which followed it — to insinuate yourself into the affections
of the woman who was pledged to me — the only woman I
had ever loved! By cunning arts, you overcame her weakness;
roused her vanities by your temptations — your wealth, your title;
played upon her poor, weak, woman-heart; dazzled her eyes—”

“Stop, Harry; and whatever else you may say in your madness,
forbear all reproach of Olive Berkeley! Not a word of
censure upon her! She was weak, no doubt; weak where, would
to God she had been most strong; but mean vanity, lust of wealth,
pride, pomp, or power, never weighed one moment in her bosom.
She, at least, was free from all such sin.”

“What is it, then, that you call her weakness?”

“She had no proper power — no will, perhaps — when she heard
that you were dead, to resist an authority under which her infancy
and childhood had been always trained. The fault (and there was
fault) was none of hers. She must not suffer censure from your
lips or mine.”

“Ah! I thank you, Edward Berkeley, for this, at least. It
restores her to my thought, to my heart, as she was before — a
pure, loving, faithful, and devoted woman. Olive! Olive! it is a
great gain to my soul that I can still think of you as in that first
morning of our youth, when neither of us had dread of wreck.
But, how much more the wrong and shame of those who have baffled
the hopes and crushed the hearts of both! Yes, Olive, I
might have known, in your wan visage and breaking heart, that
you were only a victim! But you shall not be unavenged! —
Weak, say you, Edward Berkeley? — weak as a loving, simple-hearted,
tender woman! But whose was the wily art to abuse

this weakness? to win this weak heart from its faith? to deceive
her with false tidings of my death? to torture her life by incessant
practice, until, through sheer exhaustion, she sank into submission
to a fate at which her whole soul revolted — a fate which has
brought her now, as you admit, to the very verge of doom? Who,
but you, and that wretched old beldame, her mother?”

“False! false! I am guiltless.”

“Yes; you joined wits together; laid your snares; practised
your arts; lied, cajoled, vexed, worried, until you triumphed —
triumphed in the utter overthrow of the fairest, gentlest, loveliest
of all God's creatures. Your money and rank bought that misererable
old woman, whose passions, nursed by vanity, had no life
save in public show. The strong will of the strong man; the cunning
arts of the selfish old woman: these combined to overawe, to
overcome the timorous young thing, till you had her tangled in
your snares, fettered in your meshes, trembling under your despotism,
and, in utter despair at last, yielding submission, through
utterly-exhausted faculties and a wretchedly-bewildered brain!
And lo! the fruits — madness, and a closely-impending death!
Acquit Olive, as you do, and such is the history, such the damnable
crime; and all the guilt is yours!”

A cold sweat covered the pallid brows of the cassique. The
vehemence of our rover had been irresistible. And such was the
apparent history. On his lips, it was but too plausibly stated;
and the cassique shuddered as he heard.

“It is a terrible picture, Harry Berkeley, which you have
drawn; and I feel there is too much in it that is probably true!
This is what crushes me. For, though myself guiltless, I fear,
from what I now know, that such have been the arts practised to
subdue the faith of Olive Berkeley, and cause her to yield to my
wishes. I have been made to win by a practice in which I did
not share.”

“Ah! and who not guilty, if not you? Knew you nothing of
these processes? Was Olive's such a clear, frank, noonday consenting
to your prayers, that it never once struck you that it was
an enforced business? Can you tell me that she smiled gratefully
when you came? that her eyes seemed to hunger for your coming;
that her lips welcomed you with fondest falterings of speech,
Oh! there are thousand signs by which one detects the passion

lurking in the purest virgin heart, and giving encouragement to
the bashful wooer. All of these you saw? You were not a simpleton;
not blind with self-conceit; no mere boy, laboring under a
bounding impulse of the blood? You could see, could hear, could
understand, that child-nature — so unsophisticated, so true in every
gushing emotion, thought, feeling, fancy! You were not deceived.
Had you these signs, proofs? — for such signs speak as
certainly for the ingenuous young heart as any that shine from
heaven, or pass before our eyes on earth. Ah! you had these
proofs, Edward Berkeley, all, ere you ventured to say to yourself,
`This woman loves me?' Surely, you never, with your
pride, your manhood, would descend to a traffic in hearts, in
which you were willing to have a counterfeit passed upon you!”

“Were I to say to you, Harry, that I had such proofs — now,
with my present thoughts and convictions — I should speak
falsely. But, when I sought Olive Masterton in marriage, I fondly
fancied that I had these proofs. No! my pride alone would never
have suffered me to take a counterfeit passion to my breast.”

“Never! never! You could never have believed that you had
such proofs.”

“I had not. I am willing now to admit that I had not. Yet,
I loved, and was willing to believe! I was deceived by others;
I was too easy, too willing to be deceived by myself. That was
all my fault. Now that I look back, I wonder at my own self-deception.
Olive was simply passive. The proofs that assured
and lured me were such as cunning could suggest to passion.”

“And whose the cunning?”

“It is enough for me, Harry, to disclaim the cunning as mine.
I used no arts, except those which should commend myself to a
beloved object; none but such as I thought, and still think, legitimate
to use. That others were used, I now believe; but it is
not for me, Harry, to declare or denounce the guilty. Enough
for me, to disclaim all part in the guilt. I had no doubt of
your death; but you were not spoken of, or thought of, in this
connection. I fancied, when I proposed for Olive, that her heart
had been touched in no serious manner: that she had been an
object of attention, had reached my ears; but no such object ever
presented himself to my sight; and the assurance given me was,
that there had been no obligation between her and any other

party. I am satisfied now — even before any word from you —
that all this was false; that there had been an engagement: but
even then, even when I had made this discovery, I never dreamed
that you had been the object of her affections. This discovery
was reserved for a more recent period. It was then made involuntarily
by Olive herself, under circumstances too sacred to speak
of. Whatever subterfuge or cunning was employed to bring her
to my wishes, Harry Berkeley, as God hears me at this moment,
I knew nothing of them. I was as innocent of any false practice
with Olive Masterton as she with me! That she was practised
upon — that we were both practised upon, selfishly and dishonestly,
even as you describe the practice — I am now too well satisfied.
It is my great grief that I was the gainer — if, indeed, it
be gain — by this false practice; that so much that you have said
is true! But I, too, have been the victim. Do you think that I
would have married any woman whom I should have to love in
vain?”

An incredulous laugh, full of bitterness, answered this assurance.
For the moment, the speaker had no other answer.

“You may laugh, Harry, as you will. But I have lived too
long in vain, to be moved by this treatment. It is matter of more
moment to you than to me, that you should continue to nurse this
demon of doubt. If I loved Olive Masterton — if I tried all arts
to win her — sacrificing truth, and faith, and magnanimity, as well
as honesty — I am terribly punished for the fault! She will soon
be lost to us for ever. She has long since been lost to me! For
months have I known, not only that she loved me not, but that
my presence was a pain to her, and a loathing! If I have sinned
against you, my brother, I have got my reward. My punishment
is inevitable. If I could reproach myself, as you now reproach
me, I should entreat your sword to my throat; nay, my brother,
be prompted to use my own! The demon has urged this in my
ears a thousand times, and with reason, for, of a truth, life is to me
a dreadful weariness!”

“Edward Berkeley, I would to God that I could believe you!
How I have loved you, can be said by no lips better than by
yours; it will not now be said by mine. I believed you all truth
and honor. I would have trusted you with mine — with life, love,
everything — ay, even with Olive! And to be betrayed by you!”

“I never betrayed you, Harry.”

“Stay, Edward Berkeley. Do not suppose me ignorant. My
emissaries have been busy. I have heard the truth. There was
one person, at least, who told you of Olive's engagement, and the
claims of your brother.”

“Never! Who?”

“Old Walter Hern! You saw him; you spoke to him of
Olive and her childhood, and he told you of our betrothal.”

“He did not.”

“What! old Hern lie — that good old man — the faithful steward
of our father for forty years?”

“Did Hern tell you, in so many words, that he had told me
these things? I honor his truth no less than you. If he said
this, I should (but for my own conscientious conviction that I
could not so have erred) be staggered by the assertion.”

“He said to Jack Belcher that he had told you all.”

“He did not! Belcher has jumped to his conclusions, and the
old man has spoken vaguely. I have no doubt that he would
have spoken out, but for a false notion of delicacy. Certainly he
would have done so, but for the account of your death, when he
had no further reason to see embarrassment in my marriage with
Olive. O Harry, would to God that the old man had spoken
out! But he never did. He dealt in hints and inuendoes, the
amount of which was that Olive, at some time past, had been interested
in another. This was all that I could comprehend, and
upon this hint I pressed Mrs. Masterton with the keenest inquiry.
I have already told you what was her answer.”

“The miserable hag!”

“It is possible that, could I now recall all that Walter said, in
his shrinking, timid, doubtful manner, I should have the clue to
what he meant. With my subsequent knowledge, all might be
made clear. But the old man, though he spoke of another attachment,
of secret meetings —”

“Not so very secret. You might have heard it from a dozen
at Feltham.”

“But we were not at Feltham. I did not meet Olive there.
Her mother and herself were in lodgings at London.”

“Ha! London — waiting your arrival.”

“But never once, though Walter hinted a betrothal, did he or

any one give me the slightest reason to suppose that you, my
brother, were the person who was thought to have preceded me
in the affections of Olive.”

“But should not the mere hint of the betrothal, no matter to
what person, have served to check your pursuit?”

“It did—”

“Not very long.”

“O Harry! be not so coldly and unjustly incredulous. It did
check my pursuit; for I should be the last man to seek so ready
a fiancée. But I had the most solemn assurance from the mother
of Olive that there was no truth in the report. She admitted that
there had been some attention from another; that, for awhile, she
fancied Olive to be impressed, but she was mistaken; that there
had been no engagement, no impressment; and that the affair was
all over, long before.”

“Jezebel! And you never once conjectured that the other
party was your own brother?”

“Never, as I hope for mercy!”

The eyes of Harry Berkeley deliberately addressed themselves
to those of his brother. He searched them piercingly, and with a
keen intensity, which seemed resolutely to probe the soul through
them to its most secret depths. Those of the cassique were open to
the scrutiny as frankly, fairly, broadly, as were the soft, blue skies
overhead. They shrank not from the search; they recorded the
truthful utterance of his lips; there could not be a doubt of their
veracity; and Harry Berkeley, however reluctant to believe —
however still dissatisfied as hopeless — could not fail to be impressed.
He lifted his rapier-point slowly from the earth, and
sent it home with force into the scabbard.

“We have played together, Edward,” he said, very slowly and
sadly, “as loving brothers. We have had, for long, pleasant seasons,
but a single life between us. Your money has been mine;
you have never given it grudgingly; and if I suffered myself to
reproach you as the first-born of my father, believe me I never
once envied you your better fortune, not even when I strove to
make myself independent of it. O Edward, it was the bitterest
pang to me of all, when I felt compelled to think that you had
passed between me and all my hopes, and all that my heart held
precious, by means of that wealth!”

“And how could you think that, my brother? — how, at least,
think that I could do so knowingly, wilfully?”

“Could I think otherwise, in possession of such evidence?”

“No evidence — nay, that of your own senses even — should
have sufficed to make you believe that I could wrong you, in the
face of such an experience as ours. Ah! Harry, this is among
the keenest pangs of my soul. What should I not require to believe
you false to me, to honor, and the sweet, pure lessons of our
sainted mother!”

“Speak not of her now,” said the other, in husky accents. “She,
at least, is spared the sight of our mutual disappointments.”

“True; and yet how glad and grateful was her hope!”

“She is at rest, thank Heaven, and can feel no disappointment
now.”

“Unless in sympathy with us! O Harry Berkeley, if I had
ever wronged you in this matter, or in any matter, you have a
revenge such as no sword-stroke of yours could ever inflict. Look
at these locks, prematurely gray, yet how little am I your senior!
I tell you, I now live for nothing — have lived in vain! I struggle
— strive; for I have turbulent energies that I must keep employed,
lest, like wolves, in the shape of passions, they turn upon
and rend me. But, save for this, I exercise mind and muscle to
no end. I have no longer a purpose in my work, as I no longer
have a living hope in my soul. Hope and ambition are dead
within me. She for whom I could have striven valiantly and nobly,
she is heedless; can not heed even if she would; and, too
well I know, would not if she could. Of that I am too painfully
assured. Loving her as I do, Harry, would to God, for your sake
and hers, I had never seen her! Would to God I could restore
her to you now! But prayer is now vain. She will die, Harry
— you have seen that — Olive will die!”

“Ay! to both of us!”

“And it is well now. She could live for neither. She has not
lived for me; and it may give your heart a sad satisfaction now
to know that her life, such as it has been, has been wholly yours.
I know it now, too late — too late! Harry — it is something very
sacred — but hearken.”

Here his voice sank to a whisper, and he drew his brother
aside, taking him by the arm:—

“Harry, all the secret of her love for you has been delivered
to me, by her own unconscious lips, in her midnight dreams, and
when her senses seemed all to wander. Think of that, Harry:
how awful! O Harry, though I shuddered to hear the cruel
story, yet a strange fascination bound me to her side, and I was
made fatally wise in regard to her fate, and mine, and yours — all
so terribly bound up together! Alas! we have all been cruelly
betrayed. She is not the only victim. She has passed the crisis.
She is now beyond all trial of the Fates!”

“You do not tell me that she is — dead?” was the question of
our rover, in hoarse but subdued accents, as if under a sudden
shock, which made him recoil from that embrace which his brother
had unconsciously taken about his neck.

“No! oh, no! She still lives; but the worst pangs — those of
the soul — of its first consciousness of wreck and ruin — are all
over. And still she suffers in the body. But the life of her mind,
now, is resolved into mere dream.”

“Yet she grew to consciousness, when standing here between
us. That one speech, that action—”

“Was probably the last effort of the lingering mind. All is
delirium now, and vacancy. She will probably never again know
us, except in the last struggle which looses the silver cord of
life.”

“Edward, I would be near her then. I must, I tell you —
must catch her last look, hear her last murmurs, see the light go
out of her eyes. I feel that she will know me then. I must be
present.”

“Go to her now; be with her always — to the last. She may
linger thus for weeks: she may sigh out life in an hour.”

“No, not now! I can not see her now! Edward, my brother,
when I waited for you this evening, I fully thought that there
could be no explanation between us save one — that of the sword.
I felt, my brother, that I could slay you; felt sure that, having
so wronged me, you would strive probably to slay me. I have
had dire and desperate thoughts, Edward! Forgive me these
thoughts; forgive me that I could so easily forget our boyhood,
and our boyhood's mother, as to meditate your death. But, it
was a madness, my brother, rather than a thought! I have been
a madman for a long season, and have done the maddest things.”

“Tell me of yourself, Harry,” in low, sweet accents; and the
hand of the cassique gently stole once more about the neck of our
rover.

“No, no! nothing now. There will be a better time for this,
when we meet under a canopy of cloud, with the badges of stately
mourning all around, and the signs of death staring the life out of
our own eyes. Ask me then, when we are standing, perchance,
over the bier of — of — ay, Edward, the bier of Olive Masterton
— ask me then. It will be a proper time. We must part now.”

“Whither would you go, Harry?”

“Whither? As the winds drive! What matters whither?”

“But you will go with me? Be with me now, Harry, since
Fate so thoroughly restores you to me! Come with me; all here
is yours. I and mine are yours, Harry! — Olive, too, is yours!”

And the brave cassique covered his face with his hands, while
deep sobs broke from his lips. Harry Berkeley turned away abruptly,
as if to depart; possibly to subdue his own emotions.

The other pursued and clasped him in his arms.

“Let us not part now, Harry. Go with me!”

“No, Edward, not now. I must go elsewhere: I have duties.”

This was said very calmly, as if the passions had been all subdued.
The cassique clung to him.

“Duties! What are you doing? how came you here? whence
— why? and where have you been these many, many months? I
have so much to hear, Harry!”

“And I so much to tell — if it will bear telling, or if I could
speak! But it will only pain me to do so, and scarcely please
you. Let me go now, Edward. Another time! There is time
enough for all. — Hark! some one calls.”

They both looked about. The nurse, with the child in her arms,
rapidly approached them and addressed the cassique.

“O sir!—”

“What 's the matter?”

“My lady, sir — she 's raving, worse than ever. Mrs. Masterton
begs you to come.”

“Will you go with me, Harry?”

The other strode to and fro. Then quickly —

“No, Edward, not now; not while she raves. But there will
come an hour when I shall be with you.”

“Why not see her now? Perhaps—”

“See her — now! and while she raves! I that have never seen
her save when her soul was placid as that of an angel! See it
now in storm! No, no; God of heaven, save me from such sight!
'T would madden me, too, Edward Berkeley, and I should forget
that we have spoken in words of peace—”

“And love, too, Harry!”

“I should forget all, but her wrongs and my own. I will not
see her now. Enough that I have seen her: and such a wreck
of love, and happiness, and beauty! Away! Go you, Edward;
go quickly!”

“I must. Yet, O my brother, say that I am forgiven the unconscious
share I have had in this threefold work of wo! Though
guilty of no treachery, I feel that I too have been weak and miserably
blind. I have suffered my own passions to cloud my
senses and baffle my reason. But for this, all would have been
well with all of us!”

“Ah, no more! Hell's curses upon that she-fiend!—”

“Curse not, Harry!” very solemnly. “Even at this very moment,
Olive—”

“Ah! go to her, Edward.”

“You will now grasp my hand — we may now embrace, dear
Harry!” was the pleading, faltering speech of the cassique; and
the brothers fell into each other's arms! One violent grasp — one
close, passionate embrace; the big tears gathering from both eyes;
heavy, choking sobs, bursting from both bosoms; their manly
frames trembling with the emotions of their souls — and they tore
themselves asunder.

The cassique sped toward the dwelling, never once looking behind
him. Harry watched him as he went. Then, as he turned, he
discovered the nurse with the child close beside him. Confounded
by what she saw, the woman had lingered. She had witnessed
the parting embrace of the brothers — heard their passionate language;
they wholly forgetful of her presence.

The moment Harry Berkeley beheld her, he said —

“Ha! it is Olive's child!”

And he took the infant quickly, but tenderly enough, from the
arms of the nurse. He held it aloft, and gazed in its soft blue
eyes. And it smiled upon him, and cooed with its little lips.

And he felt how like it was, in feature, to himself. Giving it
back to the nurse, he murmured —

“It is Olive's child — Olive's, but not mine!”

Then, without further look or word, he turned away, and with
rapid strides soon buried himself in the thickets. In a few moments
he was upon his steed, and going at a rapid pace through
the forest.