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Rh his brother had had at any time a love affair—not serious, but amusing, perhaps—a student's flirtation, even. Also, when and for how long, if at all, had the brothers been separated since their schooldays?

And Brierly had replied that he knew very little of his father's ancestors, beyond the fact that his grandfather Brierly was a Virginia gentleman, and his father an only son. The family, so far as he knew, had been Virginians for three generations, and what more, pray, could an American ask? As for his mother, she had been a Miss Louise Cotterrell of Baltimore, her father a railway magnate of renown. In her desk, very much as she had left it, in a closed-up room in the old house, were bundles of old letters and ancient family papers, so his father had once told him; he had meant to examine them some time, but had not yet so done. If Ferrars desired it he would do this soon.

So far as his dead brother was concerned, Brierly was sure there had never been a love affair of even the most ephemeral sort. In fact, Charles had always been shy of women, and used to shirk his social duties as much as possible. Hilda Grant was, without doubt, his first and only love. As to their separations, there had been several. To begin, Charlie had been in college a year after he (Robert) had been graduated, and the following year, "because the boy had seemed run down and in