"It seems an eternity to me," answered the boy; and spite of his wrathful manhood, tears sprang up, and spread like a mist over the smouldering fire of his eyes.
James looked at him with grave earnestness, his own face was pale and careworn, his eyes heavy with a potent sorrow, but it took an expression of deeper anxiety as he perused the working features before him.
"My dear boy, something is amiss with you; come into the hotel. I have a room here yet. Cheer up, it must be a bitter sorrow, indeed, if your brother cannot help you out of it."
Ralph ground his teeth, and the word "hypocrite" broke through them.
But James did not hear it, he had turned to enter the hotel. Ralph followed him, growing paler and paler as he walked. The bitter wrath that had been for a moment disturbed was concentrating itself at his heart again.
They entered James Harrington's room, a small chamber in the highest story of the hotel, and both sat down.
"Now," said James, kindly, "tell me why it is that you are so changed. I scarcely know you with that look, Ralph."
"I scarcely know myself with these feelings," cried the youth, smiting his breast in a sudden storm of passion. "Oh! James, James! how could you be so generous, so kind to a poor fellow only to plunder and crush him at last? What had I done that you should tear up my youth by the roots, just as it began to feel the warmth of life?"
"Ralph, are you mad?"
"It is not your fault or hers if I am not mad," was the bitter reply.