"There," cried Richmond half-laughingly, half-scornfully, "confess, sir, that a lying spirit was on your lips. Say you believe that of Janet and that you do not still love her, if you dare!"

Hendon Chartley let his head fall into his hands, and bent down, with his shoulders heaving with the emotion he could not conceal, while his sister bent over him and laid her hand upon his head.

He started up at her touch, seized and kissed her hand, and then, going to the side of the room, he laid his arm against the panel and his brow upon it, to stand talking there.

"I can't help it, Rich dear," he groaned; "I feel like a brute beast sometimes, and as if I can never look her in the face again. I've drunk; I've gone wild in a kind of despair; and Poynter seems to have been always by me to egg me on, and get me under his thumb."

"My own brother!"

"Don't touch me, dear. I can't stop here. I'll do as Mark Heath did, and if Janet'll wait, perhaps some day I may come back to her a better man, and she may forgive me."

There was a pause.

"I don't believe anything of her but what is good and true; God bless her for a little darling--Why, Rich!"

He turned sharply, for a low moan had escaped his sister, and he found that she had sunk into a chair, and was sobbing bitterly, with her face in her hands.

"Rich darling, I did not mean it. What have I said?"

"Nothing, nothing, dear; only you--you must not leave me."

"But Mark Heath--Ah! what a fool I am!" he cried, catching his sister in his arms. "I did not think what I was saying; and, Rich dear, hold up, I don't believe the dear old boy is dead."

"Hush, Hendon dear," said Richmond, mastering her emotion; "I want--I want to talk to you about Mr Poynter."

"Yes, all right. Sit down, dear, and I won't be such a fool."

"You must not leave me."

"I won't. I'll stop and fight it out like a man. And as for James Poynter, I wish I hadn't let him pay those rates."

"What?"

"I didn't like to tell you, but I let out to him about the gas and water and the rest of it, and next day he gave me all the receipts. It was one night after I'd dined with him at his club, and I was a bit primed.

I thought it was very noble of him then, but when I saw it all I did nothing but curse and swear. It was nearly the death of a patient at Guy's, for I forget what I was about. Hang it, Rich dear! don't look so white as that."

"I--I was wondering why we had not been troubled more," she stammered; and then, with her face flushing, she turned fiercely upon her brother.

"Hendon," she cried, "do you know what this means?"

There was utter silence, and Hendon Chartley turned his face away.

"I say, do you know what this means? Hendon, speak?"

"Yes."

It was slowly and unwillingly said.

"And you have encouraged this man to make advances to the woman your best friend--almost your brother--loved?"

"Oh, Rich!"

"Speak."

"No, no! I never encouraged him. I fought against it, and it has made me half mad when the great vulgar boor has sat talking about you, and drinking your health and praising you. Rich, I tell you I've felt sometimes as if I could smash the champagne bottle over his thick skull for even daring to think about you."

"And yet you have let him do all this!" cried Richmond, with her eyes flashing. "Hendon--brother, for the sake of this man's money and the comforts it would bring, do you wish to see me his wife?"

"Damn it, no! I'd sooner see you dead!" cried the young man passionately. "Say the word, old girl, and I'll fight for you as a brother should. I'll half-starve myself but what I'll get on, and pay that thick-skinned City elephant every penny I've had."

"And some day Janet shall put her arms round your neck, and tell you that you are the best and truest boy that ever lived."

"Ah! some day," said Hendon sadly.

"Yes, some day," cried Rich, clasping him in her arms. "Hendon dear, you've made me strong where I felt very, very weak, and now we can join hands and fight the enemy to the very last."

"When old Mark shall come back."

"Hush!"

"No, I'll not hush! When dear old Mark shall come back, and all these troubles be like a dream."

Richmond looked up with a sad smile in her brother's face, and kissed him once again.

"And Janet--" he said hoarsely, after he had returned her caress.

"Is acting as a true woman should. Take her as a pattern, dear, and show some self-denial."

"Why not take you, Rich?" he said kindly as he gazed in the sweet careworn face before him. "There, I won't ask you to have the money.

I'm off; if I stop here longer I shall be acting like a girl. As for Poynter, if he comes and pesters you--"

"Mr Poynter will not come," said Richmond, drawing herself up proudly.

"He has acted like a coward to us both."

"One moment, Rich," said Hendon eagerly: "do you think--the governor--"

"Has taken money from him? No."

"Thank God!"

"My father, whatever his weakness, is a true gentleman at heart. He would not do this thing."

Hendon advanced a step to take his sister in his arms, but in his eyes then she wore so much the aspect of an indignant queen that he raised her thin white hand to his lips instead, and hurried from the house.

CHAPTER SIX.