ndon after the interview with his
lawyer in Beaminster, and from London, in a few days, he wrote to
Cuthbert. The letter was curt, but not unfriendly. He wished, he said,
to repair the injustice that had been done, and to restore to Cuthbert
the inheritance that was his by right. He had already instructed his
lawyers to take the necessary steps, and he was glad to think that
Cuthbert and Nora would now be able to make the Red House what it ought
to be. He hoped that they would be very happy. For himself, he thought
of immigrating: he was heartily sick of modern civilization, and
believed that he would more easily find friends and fellow-workers
amongst the Red Skins of the Choctaw Indians than in "County"
drawing-rooms. And only by this touch did Wyvis betray the bitterness
that filled his heart.

Cuthbert rushed up to town at once in a white heat of indignation. He
was only just in time to find Wyvis at his hotel, for he had taken his
passage to America, and was going to start almost immediately. But there
was time at least for a very energetic discussion between the two young
men.

"If you think," said Cuthbert, hotly, "that I'm going to take your
place, you are very much mistaken."

"It is not my place. It has been mine only by fraud."

"Not a bit of it. It is yours by my father's will. He knew the truth,
and chose to take this course."

"Very unfair to you, Cuth," said Wyvis, a faint smile showing itself for
the first time on his haggard face.

Cuthbert shrugged his shoulders. "My dear fellow, do you suppose it's
any news to me that my father cared more for your little finger than for
my whole body? He chose--practically--to disinherit me in your favor;
and a very good thing it's been for me too. I should never have taken to
Art if I had been a landed proprietor."

"I don't understand it," said Wyvis, meditatively. "One would have
expected him to be jealous of his wife's family--and then you're a much
better fellow than I am."

"That was the reason," said Cuthbert, sitting down and nursing his lame
leg, after a characteristic fashion of his own "I was a meek child--a
sickly lad who didn't get into mischief. I was afraid of horses, you may
remember, and hated manly exercises of every kind. Now you were never so
happy as when you were on a horse's back----"

"A strain inherited from my ploughman father, I suppose," said Wyvis,
rather grimly.

"And you got into scrapes innumerable; for which he liked you a