distant cousin, a Harrington like
myself, to whom, but for your birth, I was the direct heir. The
property, a vast one, which might have been justly divided, fell to his
widow, your mother, by will. I married the lady, thus, as any sensible
man would have supposed, ensuring the inheritance which should have been
mine, and which undoubtedly would have been mine, but the lady took it
into her head to get jealous one fine day"----

"Stop, sir!" said James Harrington. "I guessed too well the cause of her
death--the bitter sorrow which haunted my mother to her grave. She died
a broken-hearted woman; do not take her name irreverently into your
lips, or I shall forget myself."

"You _are_ forgetting yourself, sir!" answered the General, waving his
hand with gentle deprecation. "This is neither time nor place for
heroics. I did but attempt to impress you with the fact, that your
mother's unjust will had caused all this domestic turmoil. You took the
property from me--I won the lady from you. Let us look upon the thing
like sensible men, and make restitution."

"Restitution, sir! Restitution of a wasted life!"

"Do be composed--I am tired of storms. You love the lady--I do not. I
want money--you care nothing for it."

"Well, sir, well?"

"Really, it is difficult coming to the point, while you look so excited;
but, if you will listen tranquilly, all this may be settled."

James sat down, with one hand pressed to his forehead.

"Go on, sir. I am listening."

"It is but just, as I said before, that you disburse the bulk of a
property which originally came from the Harrington family. Give me a
deed, conveying two-thirds of that property to my unrestricted control
during life--I have no ambition to make wills--and the secrets of this
book are safe. The west is broad, and most conveniently accommodating
when marriage ties become irksome. Mabel can take that direction for her
summer travels, while I remain here. In three months the fashionable
world may thank us for a week's gossip, which I can very well endure.
The world is large--there is California, Australia, or Europe--her
second marriage in any of these countries would never be heard of."

James Harrington started up, shaking from head to foot; and so white,
that the General half-rose, tempted to flee his presence.

"Tempter, hoary-headed fiend, how dare you!" broke from his white lips.

The old man faltered a little as he went on, and an anxious restlessness
of the