em. It pleases
me thus to put it out of his power and to stop the mouths of his false
witnesses. I am infinitely obliged by your politeness, and I have the
honour to wish you all a very good evening."

As the servants, still greatly mystified, crowded out of the sick-room
door, curtsying, pulling the forelock, scraping with the foot, and so
on, according to their degree, I turned and stole a look at my cousin.
He had borne this crushing public rebuke without change of countenance.
He stood now, very upright, with folded arms, and looking inscrutably at
the roof of the apartment. I could not refuse him at that moment the
tribute of my admiration. Still more so when, the last of the domestics
having filed through the doorway and left us alone with my great-uncle
and the lawyer, he took one step forward towards the bed, made a
dignified reverence, and addressed the man who had just condemned him to
ruin.

"My lord," said he, "you are pleased to treat me in a manner which my
gratitude, and your state, equally forbid me to call in question. It
will be only necessary for me to call your attention to the length of
time in which I have been taught to regard myself as your heir. In that
position I judged it only loyal to permit myself a certain scale of
expenditure. If I am now to be cut off with a shilling as the reward of
twenty years of service, I shall be left not only a beggar, but a
bankrupt."

Whether from the fatigue of his recent exertion, or by a well-inspired
ingenuity of hate, my uncle had once more closed his eyes; nor did he
open them now. "Not with a shilling," he contented himself with
replying; and there stole, as he said it, a sort of smile over his face,
that flickered there conspicuously for the least moment of time, and
then faded and left behind the old impenetrable mask of years, cunning,
and fatigue. There could be no mistake: my uncle enjoyed the situation
as he had enjoyed few things in the last quarter of a century. The fires
of life scarce survived in that frail body; but hatred, like some
immortal quality, was still erect and unabated.

Nevertheless my cousin persevered.

"I speak at a disadvantage," he resumed. "My supplanter, with perhaps
more wisdom than delicacy, remains in the room," and he cast a glance at
me that might have withered an oak tree.

I was only too willing to withdraw, and Romaine showed as much alacrity
to make way for my departure. But my uncle was not to be moved. In the