“Forgive me, uncle,” replied Ray Challoner, affecting an earnestness which would have deceived any one else save the man standing before him. “I know you said that, but it was in the heat of passion. I had hoped that you would find pardon for me as time melted your heart, and reflection showed you that I could not be so bad as they had painted me with the hope of belittling me in your eyes.” “Liar, forger, thief--and--murderer!” hissed the old man, taking a step nearer him and glaring into his face. “Could anything on the catalogue of vices add to the shame as such a record as has been yours, unless I add to the true bill--libertine--which you are as well?” A red flush crept over Challoner’s face, and the dangerous look deepened in his eyes again--a fact not unnoted by the elder man. “I washed my hands of you some time since, and so I informed you,” went on the old man, harshly, adding: “Then why are you here? You have gotten into some new scrape from which you wish me to extricate you, I’ll be bound. But, by the Lord Harry, I shall not do it. I will see you hanged first! You never come near me excepting when you want to wheedle money out of me. I know you like a book, Raymond Challoner, and you are a book whose pages I have closed forever and will never reopen.” “If you will give me time to speak, and will listen to me, I will tell you why I am here,” retorted Challoner. “I have been in no scrape, as you term it, nor am I in need of money. I heard that you were ill and I came to your side in all haste.” The old man laughed aloud, declaring, harshly: “In that case you came to see if you could influence me to make a new will in your favor, or, if you could get me alone, and I was too weak to resist you, to choke me into complying with your wish, eh?” “You are hard upon me, uncle,” responded Challoner, huskily, wondering if the old man had the powers of a sorcerer that he could read his thoughts so correctly, for that very thought had passed through his mind. “It seems of little use to tell you that I have mended my ways, having seen the folly of them, and that I am now giving myself up to work--hard work.” “You--work!” roared the old man, contemptuously. “Don’t tell me that, for I know that you are lying. You would never put in an hour’s honest work as long as money could be filched in any way from some victim or other. You are no good in the world; on the contrary, a continual injury to some one--whoever is unlucky enough to fall in with you. I will have none of you! Go from my presence! Leave my house more quickly than you entered it. Your very plausible tale about being anxious over the state of my health does not work with me, I tell you. Begone! before I call the police to remove you, or, to speak more plainly, to throw you into the street!” Raymond Challoner drew back and looked at the man before him. They were all alone, this man who was goading him on to madness, and himself. All alone!