"The pity of it--oh, the pity of it!" were John Brancker's first words as soon as he was able in some measure to control his feelings. "What you have told me has both shocked and grieved me as I was never shocked or grieved before. But do not say a word more about it, Mr. Clement, either now or at any future time. I would infinitely rather that you should not, and you may rest assured that I shall never ask you a single question."

"You can judge for yourself, Mr. Brancker, what my reasons were for telling you this," said Clem, whose brief burst of emotion had left him pale and calm. "Your career in life has been to a great extent compromised. A certain amount of suspicion in connection with what the world, in its ignorance of the facts of the case, naturally regards as a great crime, still clings to you, and to all seeming will continue to do so for years to come, if not as long as you live. It is now in your power to dispel that suspicion once and forever, and to clear away the dark cloud which has lowered over you for so many months. To do this needs only that you should make known to the world the facts which I have laid before you to-day."

"And do you for one moment believe, my dear Mr. Clement, that I should even dream of doing anything of the kind?" demanded John, with a sort of sad surprise. "I loved and honored your father. He was my friend at a time when I had no other friend in the world. He took me by the hand; he found a situation for me; I owe everything to him. You know that I am innocent; your brother knows it; that is enough. Perhaps you won't mind my telling my sister--I have no secrets from her--but not another creature shall hear it from me. Let the world continue to suspect me if it thinks well to do so. I can afford to appraise its doubts and suspicions at their proper value, which is no value at all. Henceforth I shall despise them, and I think, Mr. Clement, a man can always afford to live down a thing that he holds in contempt."

Clem drew a deep breath. The relief which John's words had given him no one but himself could estimate. Still, in common fairness to this generous-souled man, he felt bound to protest against a decision so adverse to his interests.

"It seems to me, Mr. Brancker," he said, "that you owe it as a sacred duty to those who are nearest and dearest to you to set yourself right in the eyes of the world, now that the means of doing so are offered you, and to resume that place in society which you have forfeited through no fault of your own."

"I owe a still more sacred duty to my dear lost friend, as those who are nearest and dearest to me would be the first to remind me if there were any danger of my forgetting it. No, Mr. Clement, I have made up my mind, and in this matter, if in no other, I am determined to have my way and do that which seems right in my own eyes."

Clement saw that it would be useless to press the point further. Indeed, had he wished to do so, he knew of no terms in which he could have urged his plea. How, in fact, could he have further urged the doing of a thing, the outcome of which would have been nothing less than disgrace and misery to him and his?

"I have something still to tell you," said Clem, presently. "You are, of course, aware that Ephraim Judd is dead?"

"Why, of course. It was yourself that brought the news to the Cottage, when I told you how much I regretted not having called upon him, but that I had no notion he was so dangerously ill."

"True! I have had much to think of lately, and had forgotten. Well, Ephraim made a very strange statement, which he charged me to repeat to you after he was gone. He had done you a great wrong, and the only reparation he could make was by confessing it."

With that Clem went on to detail to John that part of the dead man's confession which concerned him; but said no word about the latter portion--that which dealt with what Ephraim had witnessed through the fanlight.

"Poor fellow!--poor fellow!" exclaimed John, when the other had come to an end. "The temptation was a great one, and he was unable to resist it. He was tried beyond his strength, as it may be the lot of any of us to be. It was very wrong of him, not merely to keep back what he knew, but to swear to an untruth; but he is gone where his faults and his virtues will be weighed in the balances which cannot err, and Heaven forbid that I should attempt to blacken his memory by a single word. So, if you please, Mr. Clement, you and I will keep the poor fellow's confession to ourselves. It could do no possible good at this late date to make it public."

Later in the day Clement sought his brother.

"I have told John Brancker everything, or next to everything," he began abruptly. "I could no longer reconcile it to my conscience to keep him in ignorance of what was of such vital concern to him."

"I felt nearly sure that you would be guilty of some such fool's trick," was Edward's stern rejoinder. Then he added, with a sneer, "I hope you will be able to reconcile the article you call your conscience to the disgrace and ruin which will inevitably result from your mad action. The thought of your mother and sister might have restrained you, if nothing else had power to do so."

"Neither disgrace nor ruin will result from what I have done," answered Clem, quietly. "John Brancker will make no use of what I have told him. Except to his sister, he will breathe no word of it to a living creature."

Edward looked at him with eyes that expressed nothing but blank amazement.

"If it be as you say," he presently remarked, "then is John Brancker one of the noblest-hearted of men."

"It is as I say. I have his word for it."

"Ah!" said Edward, with an indrawing of his breath. "You can hardly realize what a weight you have lifted off my mind. It meant more to me than even you are aware of, that both the manner and the cause of our father's death should never be divulged. You said just now that you had told John Brancker 'next to everything.' May I ask what you meant by that particular phrase?"

"I told him nothing which would lead him to infer that the facts of the case had become known either to you or me until quite lately. Then, again, I said nothing to him of what Ephraim Judd saw through the fanlight."

Edward nodded approvingly.

"They were wise omissions on your part." Then, as if he were thinking alo............