After those significant words there was silence for some minutes, only broken by a faint tinkle and gurgle, as the host filled his glass repeatedly, and his guest followed the example in more moderate fashion. At last Mr. Haldane spoke again. "Alan, I wonder what would be your line, if you came into this inheritance? Do you know, it is larger than the one you threw away?" A few weeks ago, when Wyverne's fortunes were bound up with Helen Vavasour's, such a speech as that would have sent a hot thrill of hope through all his being: he heard it now with an indifference which was not in the least assumed. "It would be a hazardous experiment," he answered, carelessly. "They say there is a great pleasure in hoarding, when you have more money than you know what to do with. I never tried it; perhaps I should take to avarice for a change. But I might take to playing again: it's just as likely as not; and then everything would go, if my present luck lasted--the pictures and the gems, and the china, and the mosaics. It would be a thousand pities, too; I don't believe there's such another collection in England." Bernard Haldane seemed determined, that night, not to be provoked by anything that his nephew could do or say. He was so accustomed to be surrounded by helpless dependents, bowing themselves without remonstrance or resistance before his tyrannical temper, that he had got weary of obsequiousness. Alan's haughty _nonchalance_, though it evidently proceeded from dislike or displeasure, rather refreshed the old cynic than otherwise. "You are honest at all events," he muttered; "it's no use trying to bribe you into forgetting injuries; if you _will_ bear malice,--there's an end of it. We won't speak of inheritances: they put unpleasant thoughts into a man's head, whose health is breaking faster every day." Once more a shiver ran through the speaker's emaciated frame, as it cowered and shrunk together; and once more the thin white hands spread themselves eagerly to the blaze. After a pause he rose, evidently to go, and there was something actually approaching to cordiality in his manner. "It is hardly fair to ask you to stay on in this dreary place; but it would please me very much if you would spare me a few days. They tell me the covers are full of game, and you can have a hundred beaters at half an hour's notice. You will be nearly as much alone here as at the Abbey, for I never appear till dinner-time, and I go to bed very early, as you see. The Burgundy is a good sleeping-draught, but it must be humoured. You will stay over to-morrow, at least? I am glad of that. Perhaps you would like to see the keeper? Give any orders you please, not only about this, but about anything you may fancy: I _can_ answer for their being promptly obeyed. Good-night."