Cecil was the first to break the silence. He moved nearer with a rapid movement, and his hand fell heavily on the other's shoulder.
“Have you lived stainlessly since?”
The question was stern as the demand of a judge. His brother shuddered beneath this touch, and covered his face with his hands.
“God is my witness, yes! But you—you—they said that you were dead!”
Cecil's hand fell from his shoulder. There was that in the words which smote him more cruelly than any Arab steel could have done; there was the accent of regret.
“I am dead,” he said simply; “dead to the world and you.”
He who bore the title of Royallieu covered his face.
“How have you lived?” he whispered hoarsely.
“Honorably. Let that suffice. And you?”
The other looked up at him with a piteous appeal—the old, timorous, terrified appeal that had been so often seen on the boy's face, strangely returning on the gracious and mature beauty of the man.