"I don't want to preach, old fellow, but you know I can't help thinking that, by a little decent care and forethought, you ought to have made that do. Still, it's no good my saying so, is it? What is done cannot be undone—would God it could!"
He stopped short again: his voice had grown hoarse. Hugo, with the dusky red still tingeing his delicate, dark face, hung his head and made no reply.
"One can but try to do better for the future," said Brian, somewhat unsteadily, after that moment's pause. "Hugo, dear boy, will you promise that, at least?"
He put his hand on his cousin's shoulder. Hugo tried to shrink away, then, finding this impossible, averted his face and partly hid it with his hands.
"It's no good making vague promises," he said by-and-bye. "What do you mean? If you want me to promise to live on my pay or anything of that sort——"
"Nothing of that sort," Brian interrupted him. "Only, that you will act honourably and straightforwardly—that you will not touch what is not your own——"
Hugo shook off the kindly hand and started up with something like an oath upon his lips. "Why are you always talking about that affair! I thought it was past and done with," he said, turning his back upon his cousin, and switching the grass savagely with his cane.
"Always talking about it! Be reasonable, Hugo."
"It was only because I was at my wits' end for money," said the lad, irritably. "And that came in my way, and—I had never taken any before——"
"And never will again," said Brian. "That's what I want to hear you say."