Hugh’s impulse to resent was suddenly and strongly quelled by a strange, almost occult, sensation. He seemed, as it were, suddenly to feel, personally, the emotions that old Mr. Pym was enduring. These were goodwill towards the brother who had persistently misunderstood and quarrelled with him; an almost despair at that death-bed insult; an irritable questioning of the motives and intentions of himself and Mr. Mervyn, strangers except by hearsay; a yearning tenderness towards his orphaned niece. “Mr. Pym!” he said, impetuously, going to the old man as he was quitting the room, “excuse me for detaining you one moment, but I must tell you how much your niece’s grief is increased by her father’s treatment of you; it was harder to console her for that than for the fact that Sir Roderick is dead!” At first, a slight redness flushing Mr. Pym’s withered cheeks encouraged Hugh to fancy that his feelings were touched. But whatever transient emotion had caused that flush, it was but transient. “I am sure I am very much obliged to you,” he coldly said, with a nod such as he might have given to a saluting servant; “but really I do not think that you, sir, and I need go into these questions. If you will direct me to the stables, I will find my carriage.” Mr. Mervyn at once came to the rescue. “You wait here for me,” he said confidentially to Hugh. “I’ll see him off, and come back.” Hugh’s sensations when left alone were scarcely pleasant. “I am an interloper,” he thought. “Yet I love her! and if I were to wriggle out of the situation, Roderick would step in. Roderick! No. I must deal with the facts as they are, the best way I can.” At least, he thought, as Mr. Mervyn cordially held out his hand to him as he returned to the room, Lilia’s guardian and trustee did not misunderstand him. “It is a sad time for congratulations,” said Mr. Mervyn; “still, I cannot help congratulating you. Lilia is a sweet girl, with the making of a real woman in her. I was right when I said that Sir Roderick’s wish you two should be married took you by surprise, eh?” “It was more than a surprise, Mr. Mervyn.” “Not an unpleasant one? No, I thought not. Mrs. Mervyn assured me that you and Lilia liked each other weeks ago. Women are pretty reliable judges in these matters. Still, when Sir Roderick told me at the beginning of this last illness that he had invited you here, hoping that the child would take a fancy to you, I was surprised, I own.” “What could his idea have been, Mr. Mervyn?” “He liked you. When Sir Roderick liked anyone, he trusted that person blindly, I may say foolishly. Then he had just been disenchanted, awakened to the fact that his nephew Roderick is—what I have always thought him—a scamp.” “How was he enlightened?” asked Hugh, drawing a long breath of relief.