“Oh! you know how curiously things get about. He was not a man to listen to gossip. But since the 45th were quartered at Aldershot rumours of Roderick’s looseness of conduct were in the air somehow.” “Do you think he intended those two for each other?” asked Hugh. “I cannot make out,” said the clergyman, slowly. “He made a fool of that lad; sometimes so much so that I felt uncomfortable, as if it were unreal, a cruel joke he was enjoying all to himself. You see, he hated the father.” “I thought so,” said Hugh. Then he detailed the bitter speeches of the dying man, before Mr. Mervyn was fetched by Lilia. “Dear, dear!” said Mr. Mervyn. “It is not to be wondered at that the old man’s back was up just now. Curious old man, that. A bit of a Pharisee, I fear. But not as guilty as his brother thought him, I believe.” “Were you here then, Mr. Mervyn? When that affair of Lady Pym happened?” “Who told you of the family scandal, eh, young man?” Hugh recounted his father’s visit and its object. “Do you know anything of this clergyman son who wants to marry my sister?” he asked. “I met him once or twice, and thought him a prig,” said Mr. Mervyn. “But better a prig, than like his brother Roderick.” “You knew Lady Pym?” asked Hugh. “I did,” said Mr. Mervyn. “A lovely, winsome young creature; wretchedly unhappy. She was made for society and a lightsome life, and Sir Roderick literally imprisoned her. If she clung to her brother-in-law—if they were more affectionate to each other than in strict justice to him they should have been,—I, for one, cannot cast the first stone. It was piteous to see that poor girl. When the row came, and she disappeared, I felt inclined to give up the living. My one attempt to interfere was met with coldness; I could not try again. If it had not been for my wife, who was devoted to the poor baby, and literally went on her knees to me to stay, I should not be here talking to you now. It is this—with other things—that makes it impossible for me to regret Sir Roderick’s death, though he has been very kind to me, and to my wife too.” “And to the poor?” “No,” said Mr. Mervyn, energetically. “He has been their worst enemy. Your work is cut out for you, Mr. Paull, to undo his doings. But you are the man to do it.” “But—I thought—you said—he left no fortune?” Hugh’s ambition was certainly not to waste his energies in remedying Sir Roderick’s mistakes. “No fortune, as Mr. Pym considers fortune. But you had better see Turner and Moffatt, the solicitors, Paull, you really had,” added Mr. Mervyn, lapsing into the familiar and confidential. “Someone must take up a position of authority; and you are the person to do it, as matters stand.”