But Dick’s hand came out, detaining him.  “You came down to get me food?” he said.

“Yes,” muttered Robin, with his head down.  “Thought I’d—­put it in the hall—­so you’d find it—­before you came up.”

Dick stood silent for a space, looking at him.  His eyes were very gentle and the grimness had gone from his mouth, but Robin could not see that.  He stood humped and quivering, expectant of rebuke.

But he recognized the change when Dick spoke.  “Thought you’d provide me with the necessary strength to hammer you, eh?” he said, and suddenly his arm went round the misshapen shoulders; he gave Robin a close squeeze.  “Thanks, old chap,” he said.

Robin looked up then.  The adoring devotion of a dumb animal was in his eyes.  He said nothing, being for the moment beyond words.

Dick let him go.  A clock on the mantelpiece was striking twelve.  “You get to bed, boy!” he said.  “I don’t want anything to eat, thanks all the same.”  He paused a moment, then held out his hand.  “Good-night!”

It was tacit forgiveness for his offence, and as such Robin recognized it.  Yet as he felt the kindly grasp his eyes filled with tears.

“I’m—­I’m sorry, Dicky,” he stammered.

“I’m sorry too,” Dick said.  “But that won’t undo it.  For heaven’s sake, Robin, never lie to me again!  There!  Go to bed!  I’m going myself as soon as I’ve had a smoke.  Good-night!”

It was a definite dismissal, and Robin turned away and went stumblingly from the room.

His brother looked after him with a queer smile in his eyes.  It was Juliet who had taught Robin to say he was sorry.  He threw himself into an easy-chair and lighted a pipe.  Perhaps after all in his weariness he had exaggerated the whole matter.  Perhaps—­after all—­she might yet find that she loved him enough to cast her own world aside.  Recalling her last words to him, he told himself that he had been too quick to despair.  For she loved him—­she loved him!  Not all the fashionable cynics her world contained could alter that fact.

A swift wave of exultation went through him, combating his despair.  However heavy the odds,—­however formidable the obstacles—­he told himself he would win—­he would win!

Going upstairs a little later, he was surprised to hear a low sound coming from Robin’s room.  He had thought the boy would have been in bed and asleep some time since.  He stopped at the door to listen.

The next moment he opened it and quietly entered, for Robin was sobbing as if his heart would break.

There was no light in the room save that which shone from the park-gates opposite and the candle he himself carried.  Robin was sunk in a heap against the bed still fully dressed.  He gave a great start at his brother’s coming, shrinking together in a fashion that seemed to make him smaller.  His sobbing ceased on the instant.  He became absolutely still, his claw-like hands rigidly gripped on the bedclothes, his face wholly hidden.  He did not even breathe during the few tense seconds that Dick stood looking down at him.  He might have been a creature carved in granite.  Then Dick set down his candle, went to him, sat on the low bed, and pulled the shaggy head on to his knee.