Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/181

 to pat him on the shoulder. "I ask again, who's been stirring up your conscience?"

"Our mother," said Charles simply.

Henry stopped in his act, and a new look came over his face.

"Does she think it unmanly?" he asked.

"She thinks it cowardly and mean," Charles said strongly.

Not a sign of anger at these stinging words came into Henry's face, but instead the look of a child justly reproved.

"I guess she's right, Charles," he said. "I guess she's right. I hadn't thought of it before, but it is mean and cowardly. I'll call Cranston off at once."

"And Hunter?" Charles asked in his turn.

"He can find something else to raise a dust, or he can come out into the open and fight; but he shan't fight longer behind this woman's petticoat. I wish we hadn't done it at all!"

"I'd give more than I can tell," Charles answered, giving cry to that bitterness of shame which, hidden in his heart, he dared not uncover.