Chapter 9 - Page 2

yourself."

He was on the point of flaming out again at that.

"Not a word against my brother!" he exclaimed fiercely. "My brother is the noblest creature that God ever created! You must own that yourself--you know what he did at the trial. I should have died on the scaffold but for that angel. I insist on it that he is not a man. He is an angel!"

(I admitted that his brother was an angel. The concession instantly pacified him.)

"People say there is no difference between us," he went on, drawing his chair companionably close to mine. "Ah, people are so shallow! Personally, I grant you, we are exactly alike. (You have heard that we are twins?) But there it ends, unfortunately for me. Nugent--(my brother was christened Nugent after my father)--Nugent is a hero! Nugent is a genius. I should have died if he hadn't taken care of me after the trial. I had nobody but him. We are orphans; we have no brothers or sisters. Nugent felt the disgrace even more than I felt it--but he could control himself. It fell more heavily on him than it did on me. I'll tell you why. Nugent was in a fair way to make our family name--the name that we have been obliged to drop--famous all over the world. He is a painter--a landscape painter. Have you never heard of him? Ah, you soon will! Where do you think he has gone to? He has gone to the wilds of America, in search of new subjects. He is going to found a school of landscape painting. On an immense scale. A scale that has never been attempted yet. Dear fellow! Shall I tell you what he said when he left me here? Noble words--I call them noble words. 'Oscar! I go to make our assumed name famous. You shall be honorably known--you shall be illustrious, as the brother of Nugent Dubourg.' Do you think I could stand in the way of such a career as that? After what he has sacrificed for me, could I let Such a Man stagnate here--for no better purpose than to keep me company? What does it matter about my feeling lonely? Who am I? Oh, if you had seen how he bore with the horrible notoriety that followed us, after the trial! He was constantly stared at and pointed at, for me. Not a word of complaint escaped him. He snapped his fingers at it. 'That for public opinion!' he said. What strength of mind--eh? From one place after another we moved and moved, and still there were the photographs, and the newspapers, and the whole infamous story ('romance in real life,' they called it), known beforehand to everybody. He never lost heart. 'We shall find a place yet' (that was the cheerful way he put it); 'you have nothing to do with it, Oscar; you are safe in my hands; I promise you exactly the place of refuge you want.' It was he who got all the information, and found out this lonely part of England where you live. I thought it pretty as we wandered about the hills--it wasn't half grand enough for him. We lost ourselves. I began to feel nervous. He didn't mind it a