“I have a very bad temper, Philip” (I checked the disposition to add—­“and so have you"), “but I never tell a lie.  I have not come after the properties.  The only reason for which I have come is to try and make peace.”  At this point I gathered up all my strength and hurried on, staring at the sun till the bushes near us and the level waste of marsh beyond seemed to vanish in the glow.  “I came to say that I am sorry for my share of the quarrel.  I lost my temper, and I beg your pardon for that.  I was not very obliging about Mr. Clinton, but you had tried me very much.  However, what you did wrong, does not excuse me, I know, and if you like to come back, I’ll make a new part as you wanted.  I can’t give him Charles’s part, or the feather, but anything I can do, or give up of my own, I will.  It’s not because of to-night, for you know as well as I do that I do not care twopence what happens when I’m angry, and, after all, we can only say that you’ve taken the things.  But I wanted us to get through these holidays without quarrelling, and I wanted you to enjoy them, and I want to try and be good to you, for you are my twin brother, and for my share of the quarrel I beg your pardon—­I can do no more.”

Some of this speech had been about as pleasant to say as eating cinders, and when it was done I felt a sudden sensation (very rare with me) of unendurable fatigue.  As the last words left my lips the sun set, but my eyes were so bedazzled that I am not sure that I should not have fallen, but for an unexpected support.  What Philip had been thinking of during my speech I do not know, for I had avoided looking at him, but when it was done he threw the properties out of his arms, and flung them around me with the hug of a Polar bear.

"You ill-tempered!” he roared.  “You’ve the temper of an angel, or you would never have come after me like this.  Isobel, I am a brute, I have behaved like a brute all the week, and I beg your pardon.”

I retract my wishes about crying, for when I do begin, I cry in such a very disagreeable way—­no spring shower, but a perfect tempest of tears.  Philip’s unexpected generosity upset me, and I sobbed till I frightened him, and he said I was hysterical.  The absurdity of this idea set me off into fits of laughing, which, oddly enough, seemed to distress him so much that I stopped at last, and found breath to say, “Then you’ll come home?”

“If you’ll have me.  And never mind about Clinton, I’ll get out of it.  The truth is, Isobel, you and Alice did snub him from the first, and that vexed me; but I am disappointed in him.  He does brag so, and I’ve had to take that fowling-piece to the gunsmith’s already, so I know what it’s worth.  I did give Clinton a hint about it, and—­would you believe it?—­he laughed, and said he thought he had got the best of that bargain.  I said, ’I hope you have, if it isn’t an even one, for I should be very sorry to think I had cheated a friend!’ But he either did not or wouldn’t see it.  He’s a second-rate sort of fellow, I’m sure, and I’m sorry I promised to let him act.  But I’ll get out of it, you shan’t be bothered by him.”