I would not for a moment consent even to the thought of either of my
sons marrying her, although I knew her to be all that was gracious
in womankind. I could not tell them the reason: the secret was hers,
poor girl, and I did not betray it. I said 'No,' and each knew what
that meant. So we separated, but the worst of it was, my friends,
that each lad thought I had refused my consent to save the other the
pain of seeing his brother happy; so that greater than their anger
with me was their jealousy of one another. With murder in their
hearts they fled to America, I believe, pursuing in self-torture
that phantom of revenge which we have all seen sometime or another,
and whose hot breath we must have felt."

Sir Humphrey pauses oftener now.

"I tell you all this because I want you to see how possible it may
be for a man to think he is doing the very best, the only right thing,
and then for perhaps an infinitely worse one to crop up. I read not
long ago in a wild Western paper a story of two Englishmen who
fought a lonely duel on some slope of those great mountains out there,
and I think I have not slept since I read it. To have exiled my boys
only that they might kill one another in foreign lands and sleep so
far away from our English ground!"

Sir Humphrey's voice is failing now and his eyes grow moist A man,
you see, does not easily forget his first-born.

"I tell you all this," he continues, "that it may help you to be
kind and to think twice. I only thought once, and perhaps the worst
may have come of it. Then I tell it to you, too, because I am an old
man now, and my voice is not as strong as it was, and I can't get