Cuthbert's voice dropped. He had never spoken of it before, but he and Wyvis knew well enough that his lameness was the result of his father's brutal treatment of Mary Brand shortly before the birth of her second son.
"He ought to have been more bent on making amends than on sacrificing you to me," said Wyvis, bitterly.
"Oh, don't look at it in that way," Cuthbert answered. The natural sweetness of his disposition made it painful to him to hear his father blamed, although that father had done his best to make his life miserable. "He never meant to hurt me, the poor old man; and when he had done it, the sight of my infirmity became exquisitely painful to him. I can forgive him that; I can forgive him everything. There are others whom it is more difficult to forgive."
"You mean——"
"I mean women who have not the courage to be true," said Cuthbert, in a low voice. He did not look at his brother, but he felt certain that a thrill of pain passed through him. For a minute or two Wyvis did not speak.
"Well," he said at last, forcing an uneasy laugh, "I think that she was perhaps right. She might not have been very happy. And I doubt, after all, whether I ought to have asked her. Janetta thought not, at any rate."
"Janetta is generally very wise."
"So she is very wise. I am legally quite free, but she thinks me—morally—bound."
"Well, so do I," said Cuthbert, frankly. "On all moral and religious grounds, I think you are as much bound as ever you were. And if Miss Adair refused you on those grounds, she has more right on her side than I thought."
"Ah, but she did not," answered Wyvis, dryly. "She refused me because I was not rich, not 'in society,' and a ploughman's son."