ly there was a lonely feeling,
vague, indefinable, which hovered about him. And then those dreadful
chills increased. Lying out in that rock-crevice, in fact lying out for
several nights insufficiently covered, had sown the seeds. Assuredly no
luck had come to him through meddling with the King's grave. And then,
before evening had merged for an hour into dark night, Hilary Blachland
lay shivering beneath his piled-up blankets as though they had been
ice--shivering in the terrible ague-throes of that deadly malaria--weak,
helpless as a child, deserted, alone.

End of Book I.

CHAPTER ONE.

WISER COUNSELS.

"That scamp! That out-and-out irreclaimable scamp! A hundred is just
ninety-nine pound nineteen more than he deserves. A hundred. No--I'll
make it two."

Sir Luke Canterby looked up from the document he had been perusing and
annotating, and biting the end of his pen, sat gazing meditatively out
of the window. It was a lovely day of early spring, and the thrushes
were hopping about the lawn, and the rooks in the great elms were making
a prodigious cawing and fuss over their nest-building. All Nature was
springing into new life in the joyous gladsome rush of the youthful
year, but the old man, sitting there, was out of harmony with
rejuvenated Nature. His meditations and occupation were concerned, not
with life, but with death. The document before him was nothing less
momentous than the draft of his last will and testament.

In appearance, however, there was nothing about Sir Luke Canterby to
suggest impending dissolution, either now or in the near future. Seated
there surrounded by the dark oak of his library, he represented a
pleasant and wholesome type of old age. He was tall and spare, and, for
his years, wonderfully straight. He had refined features and wore a
short beard, now silvery white, and there was a kindly twinkle in his
eyes. He was a rich man, but had not always been, and, although of good
parentage, had made his money in commerce. He had been knighted on the
occasion of a Royal visit to the mercantile centre wherein at the time
he was prominent, but in his heart of hearts, thought but little of the
`honour' in fact, would have declined it could he have done so with a
good grace.

His gaze came back to the paper with a troubled look, which deepened as
he made the correction. For although to the legatee in question two
hundred pounds would be better than none, yet the said le