'I know that I ought to have answered your letter long ago, and I should have done so, had I been certain how much I was justified in telling you about poor Loring. You say you are in a position to make use of any information I can send you, but my knowledge seems to me to be of a kind which, if shared with our uncles, would only increase their quarrel, not lessen it. Loring dictated two letters before he died, which I wrote and despatched as he desired—the one to Uncle Ross, the other to Uncle Jack. They were addressed to Carm Hall. As he was able to write through me, he did not give any verbal messages when he was dying. Have you never heard of these letters? It is not possible, is it, that Uncle Jack never received his? There! that question is as bad as a lie, so please consider it scratched out. I know, by something you said in your last letter to me, that Uncle J. can't have received it. These are the facts of the case. Loring was offered his choice between giving up his intention to be a soldier, or accepting an income of £2000 a year, with the prospect of inheriting almost all Uncle Ross's fortune. This sounds straight enough, but it was not straight, for he was bound over not to tell Uncle Jack of the bribe offered. Uncle J. thought he was choosing simply between the army and an office stool. Uncle Ross offered him money down, and a life of idleness, spent where he pleased; in fact, there was nothing he would not have offered in order to buy out his brother's influence. When Loring lay dying he considered himself freed from that promise of secrecy which he had made for his lifetime, and he wrote to Uncle Jack telling him how Ross had acted. He also explained that he had left home without any farewells, in order to leave them free to forget him, the cause of their quarrel, and because he was indignant at the secrecy, which seemed dishonourable, of the offer made him. "You," he wrote, "would have scorned to privately bribe me, had you possessed my other uncle's wealth. I chose to follow my own wish in the matter of choosing a profession, since I felt that, by attempting to bribe me, Uncle Ross had absolved me from all obligation due to his former care of me. Until he made that offer, which few young men would have refused, I was trying to subdue my longing for a soldier's life, that I might repay him for making me his heir. You never tried to influence me; you only told me true stories of a soldier's life. It was entirely owing to Uncle Ross's secret persuasion that I left home to enlist." There, my dear Catherine, as nearly as I can remember, those were the words poor Loring wrote to Uncle Jack by my hand in that letter which it is clear enough Uncle Jack has not received. My own opinion is, that it reached Carm Hall after the colonel's departure, and that Uncle Ross (knowing some of its contents through Loring's letter to him) purposely refrained from forwarding it. If my suspicion is correct, the news I send you will surely increase the family quarrel rather than lessen it; but I place it in your hands to be used or not used, as you judge best. My opinion is that a reconciliation will never take place, if it cannot come to pass without a confession by the squire. It is more often the person who has done the injury, not the person injured, who refuses to forgive. If you ever wish for it, Catherine, I can send you a copy of Loring's letter to the colonel, for I have at home the rough notes for it—the words that his failing breath dictated to me.'
'Catherine, dear!'
Uncle Jack had come to the open window of the dining-room, and was calling her in from the garden.
'Coming!'
There was no time to think over the letter she had been reading, and she must laugh and talk over the breakfast just as though no news had come to startle her.
Catherine made a brave effort to appear unconcerned, and, luckily, Agatha was in a cheerful, unobservant mood; and the colonel, though he noticed that his niece's merriment was rather strained, guessed that she was tired, or maybe disappointed at having received no communication from Brian. When prayers had been said, and Agatha carried back to the couch in her own little sitting-room and given charge over Ted and Toddie, who promised to be 'beautifully good all mornin',' Catherine was free to put one or two careful questions to her uncle. She went to him where he was sitting before his writing-table, and clasping his arm, knelt by his side, gazing affectionately into his face.
'Dear, I—have been thinking a great deal about poor Loring this morning.'