“Yes, I should say so,” replied Mr Cheviott. “And what will you tell them?”
“Everything. I have no choice,” said Arthur. “That is to say, I shall tell them all about my father’s will and the present state of the case, and what Maudsley thinks and what you think. Of course I need not go into particulars as to what passed between Alys and me the other day, but I will just tell them that anything of the kind, as regards both her and myself, never has been, never could have been possible—that we are, and always have been, and always shall be, I trust, brother and sister to each other.”
Mr Cheviott had been listening attentively.
“Yes,” he said, when his cousin left off speaking, and looked up for his approval, “I don’t think you can do better.”
“And now for your news—Mrs Brabazon’s, I mean,” said Arthur, eagerly. But Mr Cheviott showed no corresponding eagerness to reply.
“She says,” he answered, quietly, “that Miss Western is with them and quite well. Of course they are all sadly depressed by young Brooke’s death, though they knew it must come before long—she writes as if poor old Brooke had got his death-blow, but she says that ‘Lilias’ has been the greatest comfort to them.”
“And what more?” asked Arthur, “there is something more, I know. There is nothing in all that to have been a reason for Mrs Brabazon’s writing to you.”
“I didn’t say there was. Women constantly write letters without any reason,” observed Mr Cheviott.
Arthur got up from his seat and walked impatiently up and down the room.
“Laurence,” he said at length, “I think that sort of chaffing of yours is ill-timed.”