nd down the room,
while Bertram stood with his back to the fire watching him. The
lawyer's brow became blacker and blacker, and as he rattled his
half-crowns in his trousers-pockets, and kept his eyes fixed upon the
floor, Bertram began to feel that the interview did not promise to be
one of a very friendly character.

"I was sorry to hear, Harcourt, that you are among the lot that have
left the Government," said Bertram, hardly knowing what else to say.

"D---- the Government! But I didn't come here to talk about the
Government. That old man down there will be gone in less than a
week's time. Do you know that?"

"I hear that in all probability he has not long to live."

"Not a week. I have it from Sir Omicron himself. Now I think you will
admit, Bertram, that I have been very badly used."

"Upon my word, my dear fellow, I know nothing about it."

"Nonsense!"

"But it isn't nonsense. I tell you that I know nothing about it. I
suppose you are alluding to my uncle's money; and I tell you that I
know nothing--and care nothing."

"Psha! I hate to hear a man talk in that way. I hate such humbug."

"Harcourt, my dear fellow--"

"It is humbug. I am not in a humour now to stand picking my words. I
have been infernally badly used--badly used on every side."

"By me, among others?"

Sir Henry, in his present moody mind, would have delighted to say,
"Yes," by him, Bertram, worse, perhaps, than by any other. But it did
not suit him at the present moment to come to an open rupture with
the man whom he had been in such a hurry to visit.

"I treated that old man with the most unbounded confidence when I
married his granddaughter--"

"But how does that concern me? She was not my granddaughter. I, at
least, had nothing to do with it. Excuse me, Harcourt, if I say that
I, of all men, am the last to whom you should address yourself on
such a subject."

"I think differently. You are his nearest relative--next to her; next
to her, mind--"

"Well! What matter is it whether I am near or distant? Lady Harcourt
is staying with him. Did it suit her to do so, she could fight your
battle, or her own battle, or any battle that she pleases."

"Yours, for instance?"

"No, Sir Henry. That she could not do. From doing that she is utterly
debarred. But I tell you once for all that I have no battle. You
shall know more--if the knowledge will do you any good. Not very long
since my uncle offered to settle on me half his fortune if