o that? Are you not all I have--my son, indeed?"

He held out his hands, and Justin took them affectionately and pressed
them in his own.

"You'll put these weak notions from your mind, Justin, and prove worthy
the noble lady who was your mother?"

Mr. Caryll moved aside again, hanging his head, his face pale and
troubled. Where Everard's arguments must fail, his own affection for
Everard was like to conquer him. It was very weak in him, he told
himself; but then his love for Everard was strong, and he would fain
spare Everard the pain he knew he must be occasioning him. Still he did
battle, his repugnance up in arms.

"I would you could see the matter as I see it," he sighed. "This man
grown old, and reaping in his old age the fruits of the egotism he has
sown. I do not believe that in all the world there is a single soul
would weep his lordship's death--if we except, perhaps, Mistress
Winthrop."

"And do you pity him for that?" quoth Sir Richard coldly. "What right
has he to expect aught else? Who sows for himself, reaps for himself.
I marvel, indeed, that there should be even one to bewail him--to spare
him a kind thought."

"And even there," mused Mr. Caryll, "it is perhaps gratitude rather than
affection that inspires the kindness."

"Who is Mistress Winthrop?"

"His ward. As sweet a lady, I think, as I have ever seen," said
Mr. Caryll, incautious enthusiasm assailing him. Sir Richard's eyes
narrowed.

"You have some acquaintance with her?" he suggested.

Very briefly Mr. Caryll sketched for the second time that evening the
circumstances of his first meeting with Rotherby.

Sir Richard nodded sardonically. "Hum! He is his father's son, not a
doubt of that. 'Twill be a most worthy successor to my Lord Ostermore.
But the lady? Tell me of the lady. How comes she linked with them?"

"I scarce know, save from the scraps that I have heard. Her father, it
would seem, was Ostermore's friend, and, dying, he appointed Ostermore
her guardian. Her fortune, I take it, is very slender. Nevertheless,
Ostermore, whatever he may have done by other people, appears in this
case to have discharged his trust with zeal and with affection. But,
indeed, who could have done other where that sweet lady was concerned?
You should see her, Sir Richard!" He was pacing the room now as he
spoke, and as he spoke he warmed to his subject more and more. "She
is middling tall, of a most dainty slenderness, dark-haired, with a so
sweet