He bent forward and frowned at me.

"Do you doubt it?" he shot across.

I shook my head. "No!"

He resumed his old position.

"Glad to hear you say so. Now,—what else? Blest if this doesn't make me feel quite a devil, to be lectured and questioned by my young brother,—my own, dear, little, preaching, farmer, kid of a brother."

"You will go to her a Brammerton, fulfilling the vow made by a Brammerton, with a Brammerton's honour, unstained, unblemished,—'Clean,—within and without'?"

He rose slowly from the chest and faced me squarely.

There was nothing of the coward in Harry.

His eye glistened with a cruel light. "Have a care, little brother," he said between his regular, white teeth. "Have a care."

"Why, Harry," I remonstrated in feigned surprise, "what's the matter? What have I said amiss?"