"You are his brother," she said slowly, so much as an affirmation that
his belief was confirmed that she had learned both their relationship
and their history from Cecil. "You must go to him, then."
He shook from head to foot.
"Yes, yes! But it will be too late!"
She did not know that the words were cried out in all the contrition of
an unavailing remorse; she gave them only their literal significance,
and shuddered as she answered him.
"That you must risk. You must go to him. But, first, I must know more.
Tell me his name, his rank."
He was silent; coward and egotist though he was, both cowardice and
egotism were killed in him under the overwhelming horror with which
he felt himself as truly by moral guilt a fratricide as though he had
stabbed his elder through the heart.
"Speak!" hissed Cigarette through her clenched teeth. "If you have any
kindness, any pity, any love for the man of your blood, who will be shot
there like a dog, do not waste a second--answer me, tell me all."
He turned his wild, terrified glance upon her; he had in that moment no
sense but to seize some means of reparation, to declare his brother's
rights, to cry out to the very stones of the streets his own wrong and
his victim's sacrifice.
"He is the head of my house!" he answered her, scarce knowing what he
answered. "He should bear the title that I bear now. He is here, in this
misery, because he is the most merciful, the most generous, the most
long-suffering of living souls! If he dies, it is not they who have
killed him; it is I!"
She listened, with her face set in that stern, fixed, resolute command
which never varied; she neglected all that wonder, or curiosity, or
interest would have made her as at any other time, she only heeded the
few great facts that bore upon the fate of the condemned.
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