And then came the reflection that if he were guilty of emotional outbursts that could so outrageously play the traitor to his real desires, were not all men subject to the same?
Might not his brother, too, come to fall a prey to one of those moments of mental storm when in a climax of despair he would find his burden altogether too overwhelming and in rebellion cast it from him?
Lionel sought to assure himself that his brother was a man of stern fibres, a man who never lost control of himself.

But against this he would argue that what had happened in the past was no guarantee of what might happen in the future; that a limit was set to the endurance of every man be he never so strong, and that it was far from impossible that the limit of Sir Oliver's endurance might be reached in this affair.

If that happened in what case should he find himself?
The answer to this was a picture beyond his fortitude to contemplate.

The danger of his being sent to trial and made to suffer the extreme penalty of the law would be far greater now than if he had spoken at once.

The tale he could then have told must have compelled some attention, for he was accounted a man of unsmirched honour and his word must carry some weight.