"I need not dwell on what followed; Bathurst is a keen detective; he vindicated my brother, Clifford, and placed the guilt where it belonged. It was Herbert who had forged my father's name.
"There was a terrible scene at the Towers. Herbert swore eternal enmity toward Clifford, and Clifford predicted then and there the downfall of all our pride, through Herbert's follies. I remember his words distinctly:
"'Let me tell you how this will end, Lord Heathercliffe,' he said; 'I have not grown up beside Herbert, not to know him. Our name has heretofore been stainless; we shall keep it so no longer; it will be dragged in the mud, smirched, hissed, disgraced utterly. But I will never permit myself to go down with the fall of the Heathercliffes; I renounce all claims upon you; I renounce my succession; I renounce a name already contaminated; the world is my heritage; I shall leave England; I shall leave Europe; I will make me a new name, and build my own fortune. When Herbert has broken your heart, and ruined your fortunes, as he surely will, and when his debaucheries have brought him to an early grave, as they must, then let the title fall to George; he is younger; he can not feel this shame so keenly; as for me, I will never wear the title; I will never be pointed out as the peer whose elder brother was a rake, a seducer, a forger, and Herbert is all these.'
"Clifford went back to Heidelberg; Herbert remained at the Towers, whining, pleading, shamefully fawning upon a doting and half imbecile old man.
"He feigned illness; he feigned penitence, and finally he held my father more than ever his adoring slave.
"I can not prolong this recital. It is needless. Herbert ran his race of infamy. My father died broken hearted. Clifford searched all England to bring Herbert, then a fugitive, to his father's death bed; but the officers of justice were before him. They ran him down in an obscure provincial village, and, to escape the consequences of his misdeeds, Herbert Heathercliffe crowned his life of mad folly by dying a suicide's death.
"And now I must turn a page in my own personal history:
"Prior to my father's death, I had formed an attachment for the only daughter of a proud and wealthy country gentleman, our neighbor. But I was a younger son, and by my father's will, made upon his death-bed, Clifford was his heir. Herbert had squandered half our father's fortune, but a handsome sum still remained.
"Realizing the hopelessness of my suit, I was preparing to quit England, taking with me my mother's legacy, which would amply suffice for a bachelor's wants, but was too meager a sum to lay at the feet of a beauty and an heiress. To make my departure more bitter, I had learned that the woman of my choice returned my affections.
"Then Sir Clifford swooped down upon me. Before I could guess his intent, he had sought and gained the consent of my wife's father; had transferred to me all his fortune, reserving only his mother's legacy, which was the same as mine. He forced me to accept by the strength of his splendid will. He installed me as master of Cliffe Towers. He hastened the marriage preparations. He remained long enough to dance at our wedding, and then he left us—proud as a king, independent as a gypsy, blameless, fearless, high-souled.