A slight redness came over Gus’s brown face. He laughed angrily. “Yes, you will have to consider my claims,” he said. And then after a little hesitation, he went away. This disturbed the current of Paul’s languid, yet intense, consciousness. He felt a horror of the man who had thus, he thought, intruded the recollection of his father’s early errors to cloud the perfect honour and regret with which he was to be carried to his grave. The interruption hurt and wounded him. Of course the fellow would have to be silenced--bought off at almost any price--rather than communicate to the world this stigma upon the dead. By and by, however, as he went on, the harshness of this jarring note floated away in the intense calm and peace of the sweet atmosphere of the morning which surrounded him. The country was more hushed than usual, as if in sympathy with what was to happen to-day. The very birds stirred softly among the trees, giving place, it might have been supposed, to that plaintive coo of the wood pigeon “moaning for its mate” which is the very voice of the woods. A soft awe seemed over all the earth--an awe that to the young man seemed to concern as much his own life which was, as the other which was ending. The same awe crept into his own heart as he went towards his home, that temple of grief and mourning, from which all the sunshine was shut out. There seemed to rise up within him a sudden sense of the responsibilities of the future, a sudden warmth of resolution which brought the tears to his eyes. “I will be good,” said the little princess, when she heard of the great kingdom that was coming to her; and Paul, though he was not a child to use that simple phraseology, felt the same. The follies of the past were all departed like clouds. He was the head of the family--the universal guardian. It lay with him to see that all were cared for, all kept from evil; the fortune of many was in his hands; power had come to him--real power, not visionary uncertain influence such as he had once thought the highest of possibilities. “I will be good”--this thought swelled up within him, filling his heart.