bequest to you. Do you intend to avail yourself of it, may I ask?”

“Well, really, that is a most astonishing question—”

“You don’t. No—of course you don’t,” came the angry interruption. “No young man with any independence of spirit, could possibly take the money under such conditions. It would be preposterous if he did—preposterous.”

“But, Mr Wainwright, I do intend to take the money.”

“You do?”

“Every farthing of it—bar probate and succession dues.”

The wrath struggling for suppression exhibited in the old man’s countenance beggars description.

“Well, well,” he jerked out at last, “the case is a strange one—a very strange one. Wills have been upset on less fishy grounds than this. Here you take this unfortunate man across the world and come back without him, but profiting substantially by his death. Putting it mildly, what will be said? Eh, sir, what will people say—what will they say?” and, throwing out his hand, he glared at his interlocutor as if awaiting a reply.

“I don’t know what they’ll say. Equally certain is it that I don’t care. As you remark, Mr Wainwright, wills have been upset, but I hardly imagine there’s any chance of this one being so dealt with. Anyhow, I’m ready to take what chance there is. However, you have no doubt made yourself familiar with the conditions under which I inherit,” he went on good-humouredly, but with a wicked twinkle in his eyes. “Don’t you know, for instance, of some young woman attractive enough to induce me to pay forfeit? She must be very attractive, mind; not too young either—’teens mean selfishness; nor too passée—that carries temper. I incline to the dark style of beauty, or something between the two. And I should be sure to capitulate at discretion, if only because it would be in a sense forbidden fruit.”

The other sat speechless with anger. At last he exploded.

“I did not come here to trifle, sir. But, I tell you, this will bring you no good. Ill-gotten gains never do. Ill-gotten gains, I say.” And, with a final glare, he bounced out of the room.

“Poor old man,” thought Claverton, watching him from the window. “Dare say he’s rather sore, and it was a sin to chaff him. But then he brought it upon himself by his bumptiousness. Likely I’m going to cut my 

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