His wonder was
that Mary Josephine believed him so utterly that not for an instant was
there a questioning doubt in her eyes or on her lips.
He told her how much he "remembered," which was no more and no less
than he had learned from the letters and the clippings. The story did
not appeal to him as particularly unusual or dramatic. He had passed
through too many tragic happenings in the last four years to regard it
in that way. It was simply an unfortunate affair beginning in
misfortune, and with its necessary whirlwind of hurt and sorrow. The
one thing of shame he would not keep out of his mind was that he,
Derwent Conniston, must have been a poor type of big brother in those
days of nine or ten years ago, even though little Mary Josephine had
worshiped him. He was well along in his twenties then. The Connistons
of Darlington were his uncle and aunt, and his uncle was a more or less
prominent figure in ship-building interests on the Clyde. With these
people the three--himself, Mary Josephine, and his brother Egbert--had
lived, "farmed out" to a hard-necked, flinty-hearted pair of relatives
because of a brother's stipulation and a certain English law. With them
they had existed in mutual discontent and dislike.
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