Mr. Dare stopped in his restless pacing, and confronted his wife. "Are we happy in our sons? Speak the truth."
"How could any one be happy, overwhelmed with a misfortune such as this?"
"Put that aside: what are they without it? Rebellious to us; badly conducted in the sight of the world."
"Who says they are badly conducted?" asked Mrs. Dare, an undercurrent of consciousness whispering that she need not have made the objection. "They may be a little wild; but it is a common failing with those of their age and condition. Their faults are only faults of youth and of uncurbed spirits."
"I wish, then, their spirits had been curbed," was Mr. Dare's reply. "It is useless now to reproach each other," he continued, resuming his walk; "but there must have been something radically wrong in their bringing-up. Anthony, gone: Herbert, perhaps, to follow him by almost a worse death, certainly a more disgraceful one: Cyril——" Mr. Dare stopped abruptly in his catalogue, and went on more generally. "There is no comfort in them for us: there never will be any."
"What can you bring against Cyril?" sharply asked Mrs. Dare. It may be, that these complaints of her husband fretted her temper; chafed, perhaps, her conscience. Certain it was, they rendered her irritable; and Mr. Dare had latterly indulged in them frequently. "If Cyril is a little wild, it is a gentlemanly failing. There's nothing else to urge against him."
"Is theft gentlemanly?"
"Theft!" repeated Mrs. Dare.
"Theft. I have concealed many things from you, Julia, wishing to spare your feelings. But it may be as well now that you should know a little more of what your sons really are. Cyril might have stood where Herbert will stand—at the criminal bar; though for a crime of lesser degree. For all I can tell, he may stand at it still."
Mrs. Dare looked scared. "What has he done?" she asked, her tone growing timid.