"Ralph—I sometimes think the thing I have to do is the—hardest that ever woman had to do." The words were uttered with a moan that drove Drew into a silence more eloquent than any question he could have put. He realized that the woman beside him must tread the rough path of confession alone, and as she could. In his heart he prayed for strength to be beside her when all was done.
"If ever a sin saved, Philip's sin saved him, and yet he counted it as nothing at the last. He bade me do for him what he could not do for himself—I have never been able to begin until—to-night. He said—he had no right to friends nor the trust and favour of love. But he never was able to renounce them; I must strike them down one by one—now he is gone.
"I must do as he would have me do—I see the justice, if the end is to be obtained, but thank God, I, who loved him—can still love him—and he has been dead a year!"
The pain-racked eyes looked straight into Drew's with a sort of challenge. But Drew was too sincere a man to give, even to friendship, a blind comfort and assurance. He merely smiled at the troubled glance, and said quietly:
"I am sure where you loved, there was much to love."
"Yes; yes; that is true; and I begin to think the nobility of it all lay in his unconsciousness of the splendid character he builded so patiently and laboriously out of all the wreck.
"Philip had a brother, Ralph! His name was never spoken. He was two years older than Philip, and as different as it was possible for a brother to be.
"John was all strength and concentration; Philip all brightness and charm—in the beginning! Their mother adored Philip; she never understood John, and yet he was a good son, brave and faithful. But he could not show his nature—it lay so far below the surface. It was always easy for Philip. His charm attracted nearly everyone. My father always liked John better. He said there was splendid power in him, and—I must keep nothing from you, Ralph—I loved John—loved him, oh! how I loved him. I pitied him because he could not win what should have been his—I loved him for myself, and for all the others who were too dull to realize his worth. It was like mother love and all the rest, in one."
"Yes; the most God-like love of all. Only women know it, I fancy," Drew murmured.
"And then"; the agonized eyes seemed to plead even while they confessed, "then the awful thing happened. John took—he stole many thousands of dollars from men who trusted and honoured him."