"But they were just like brothers," she urged.
"It's a pity young Penthouse hadn't been spanked more in his early youth," remarked Mr. Pollin.
Mrs. Travers began to feel decidedly uneasy. Could it be that Harry had, in some way, forfeited his chances of the estate and title? Could it be that the invalid brother, the unsociable, close-fisted one, had married? But she did not put the questions.
"What rash thing has the young man done?" she inquired.
"Nothing rash, but something dashed low," answered her brother. "To-day," he continued, "I received a letter from a gentleman whom it appears I've met several times in the country, Major O'Grady, of the Seventy-Third. He has evidently quite forgotten the fact that I am in any way connected with Harry Penthouse, or interested in Herbert Hemming, and after several pages of reference to some exciting rubbers we have had together (I really cannot recall them to mind), he casually tells me the inner history of Hemming's leaving the service."
"Ah, I thought so," sighed Mrs. Travers.
"Thought what, my dear sister?" asked Pollin, shortly.
The good lady was somewhat confused by the abruptness of her brother's manner, and her guard was forgotten.
"That the inner history," she replied, "is that Captain Hemming was requested to resign his commission."
"You have jumped the wrong way, Cordelia," said the gentleman, with a disconcerting smile, "for the regiment, from the colonel to the newest subaltern, and from the sergeant-major to the youngest bugler, are, figuratively speaking, weeping over his departure."