"She had been wise enough in her own
interests to dread the influence of his brother-
officers, and to persuade him, up to the period of
the marriage ceremony, to keep the proposed
union between them a secret. She could do this;
but she could not provide against the results of
accident. Hardly three months had passed, when
a chance disclosure exposed the life she had led,
before her marriage. But one alternative was
left to her husband—the alternative of instantly
separating from her.

"The effect of the discovery on the unhappy
boy—for a boy in disposition he still was—may
be judged by the event which followed the exposure.
One of Andrew's superior officers found
him in his quarters, writing to his father a
confession of the disgraceful truth, with a loaded
pistol by his side. That officer saved the lad's
life from his own hand; and hushed up the
scandalous affair, by a compromise. The marriage
being a perfectly legal one, and the wife's
misconduct prior to the ceremony, giving her
husband no claim to his release from her by divorce,
it was only possible to appeal to her sense of her
own interests. A handsome annual allowance
was secured to her, on condition that she
returned to the place from which she had come;
that she never appeared in England; and that
she ceased to use her husband's name. Other
stipulations were added to these. She accepted
them all; and measures were privately taken to
have her well looked after in the place of her
retreat. What life she led there, and whether
she performed all the conditions imposed on her,
I cannot say. I can only tell you that she never,
to my knowledge, came to England; that she
never annoyed Mr. Vanstone; and that the
annual allowance was paid her, through a local
agent in America, to the day of her death. All
that she wanted in marrying him was money;
and money she got.

"In the mean time, Andrew had left the
regiment. Nothing would induce him to face his
brother-officers after what had happened. He
sold out, and returned to England. The first
intelligence which reached him on his return,
was the intelligence of his father's death. He
came to my office in London, before going home,
and there learnt from my lips how the family
quarrel had ended.

"The will which Mr. Vanstone the elder had
destroyed in my presence, had not been, so far
as I knew, replaced by another. When I was
sent for, in the usual course, on his death, I fully
expected that the law would be left to make the
customary division among his widow and his
children. To my surprise, a will appeared among his
papers, correctly drawn and executed, and dated
about a week after the period when the first will
had been destroyed. He had maintained his
vindictive purpose against his eldest son; and
had applied to a stranger for the professional
assistance which I honestly believe he was
ashamed to ask for at my hands.

"It is needless to trouble you with the
provisions of the will in detail. There were the
widow, and three surviving children to be
provided for. The widow received a life-interest
only, in a portion of the testator's property. The
remaining portion was divided between Andrew
and Selina—two-thirds to the brother; one-third
to the sister. On the mother's death, the money
from which her income had been derived, was to
go to Andrew and Selina, in the same relative
proportions as before—five thousand pounds
having been first deducted from the sum, and
paid to Michael, as the sole legacy left by the
implacable father to his eldest son.

"Speaking in round numbers, the division of
property, as settled by the will, stood thus.
Before the mother's death, Andrew had seventy
thousand pounds; Selina had thirty-five thousand
pounds; Michael had—nothing. After the
mother's death, Michael had five thousand pounds,
to set against Andrew's inheritance augmented
to one hundred thousand, and Selina's
inheritance increased to fifty thousand.—Do not
suppose that I am dwelling unnecessarily on this
part of the subject. Every word I now speak
bears on interests still in suspense, which vitally
concern Mr. Vanstone's daughters. As we get
on from past to present, keep in mind the
terrible inequality of Michael's inheritance and
Andrew's inheritance. The harm done by that
vindictive will is, I greatly fear, not over yet.

"Andrew's first impulse, when he heard the
news which I had to tell him, was worthy of the
open, generous nature of the man. He at once
proposed to divide his inheritance with his elder
brother. But there was one serious obstacle in
the way. A letter from Michael was waiting for
him at my office when he came there; and that
letter charged him with being the original cause
of estrangement between his father and his elder
brother. The efforts which he had made—
bluntly and incautiously, I own; but with the
purest and kindest intentions, as I know—to
compose the quarrel before leaving home, were
perverted by the vilest misconstruction, to
support an accusation of treachery and falsehood
which would have stung any man to the quick.
Andrew felt, what I felt, that if these imputations
were not withdrawn, before his generous
intentions towards his brother took effect, the
mere fact of their execution would amount to
a practical acknowledgment of the justice
of Michael's charge against him. He wrote
to his brother, in the most forbearing terms.
The answer received was as offensive as words
could make it. Michael had inherited his
father's temper, unredeemed by his father's
better qualities: his second letter reiterated
the charges contained in the first, and
declared that he would only accept the offered
division as an act of atonement and restitution
on Andrew's part. I next wrote to the mother,
to use her influence. She was herself aggrieved
at being left with nothing more than a life-
interest in her husband's property; she sided
resolutely with Michael; and she stigmatised