"Ho! ho! And in what turgid melodrama does not just such an episode occur?"
Hugh Ritson drew up sharply.
"Why not? Is she poor? Then what am I? Uneducated? What is education likely to do for me? A simple creature, all heart and no head? G.o.d be praised for that!"
At this moment a girl"s laugh came rippling through the air. It was one of those joyous peals that make the heart"s own music. Hugh Ritson"s pale face flushed a little, and he drew his breath hard.
Mr. Bonnithorne nodded his head in the direction of the voice, and said softly: "So our friend Greta is here to-day?"
"Yes," said Hugh Ritson very quietly.
Then the friends walked some distance in silence.
"It is scarcely worthy of you to talk in this brain-sick fashion," said Mr. Bonnithorne. There was a dull irritation in the tone. "You place yourself in the wrong point of view. You do not love the little being."
Hugh Ritson"s forehead contracted, and he said: "If I have wrecked my life by one folly, one act of astounding unwisdom, what matter? There was but little to wreck. I am a disappointed man."
"Pardon me, you are a very young one," said Mr. Bonnithorne.
"What am I in my father"s house? He gives no hint of helping me to an independence in life."
"There are the lands. Your father must be a rich man."
"And I am a second son."
"Indeed?"
Hugh Ritson glanced up quickly.
"What do you mean?"
"You say you are a second son."
"And what then?"
"Would it be so fearful a thing if you were not a second son?"
"In the name of truth, be plain. My brother Paul is living."
Mr. Bonnithorne nodded his head twice or thrice, and said calmly: "You know that your brother hopes to marry Greta?"
"I have heard it."
Again the flush came to Hugh Ritson"s cheeks. His low voice had a tremor.
"Did I ever tell you of her father"s strange legacy?"
"Never."
"My poor friend Robert Lowther left a legacy to a son of his own, who was Greta"s half-brother."
"An illegitimate son?"
"Not strictly. Lowther married the son"s mother," said Mr. Bonnithorne.
"Married her? Then his son was his heir?"
"No."
Hugh Ritson looked perplexed.
"The girl was a Catholic, Lowther a Protestant. A Catholic priest married them in Ireland. That was not a valid marriage by English law."
Hugh smiled grimly.
"And Lowther had the marriage annulled?"
"He had fallen in love," began Mr. Bonnithorne.
"This time with an heiress?" There was a caustic laugh.
Mr. Bonnithorne nodded. "Greta"s mother. So he--"
"Abandoned the first wife," Hugh Ritson interrupted again.
Mr. Bonnithorne shook his head with an innocent expression.
"Wife? Well, he left her."
"You talk of a son. Had they one?"
"They had," said Mr. Bonnithorne, "and when the woman and child ...
disappeared--"
"Exactly," said Hugh Ritson, and he smiled. "What did Lowther then?"
"Married again, and had a daughter--Greta."
"Then why the legacy?"
"Conscience-money," said Mr. Bonnithorne, pursing up his mouth.
Hugh Ritson laughed slightly.
"The sort of fools" pence the Chancellor of the Exchequer receives labeled "Income Tax.""
"Precisely--only Lowther had no address to send it to."
"He had behaved like a scoundrel," said Hugh Ritson.