The Major laughed ironically. "Nonsense! The most incorrigible milksop that ever I saw," said he. "That is why we quarrelled." Carice looked at him doubtfully. "The very first thing that we heard of him," said she, "was that he had been mixed up in a low brawl at Gregg's tavern." "All my fault, Carice," returned Major Bergan, shortly. "I took him there, and cheated him into swallowing a glass of raw brandy." Carice's blue eyes looked a sorrowful astonishment. "I did not mean to do him any harm," pursued the Major, answering their mute eloquence; "I only wanted to teach him to drink like a man and a Bergan. I loved the boy, Carice, like my own son, and would have kept him with me, if I could. But he forsook me for the law, the ungrateful dog!" "Perhaps he had no choice," suggested Carice. "No choice! Didn't he have the choice of Bergan Hall, and all that belongs to it? That was what was running in Maumer Rue's head, just now. But he preferred independence--and a tin sign in his window! He is a degenerate scion of the race, like your--" The Major suddenly recollected himself, and broke off with a dry cough. Carice was looking down thoughtfully. An unexpected clue to Bergan's character, motives, and aims, had been put into her hands; and she was slowly trying to follow it out. "Thank you, uncle, for telling me this," said she, at length. "I am afraid we have been doing Bergan an injustice." "You certainly have, if you have thought him a drunkard," replied the Major. "But, nevertheless, he's no true Bergan, Carice; don't have anything to do with him." "No more than is just and right," said Carice, quietly. "And now I must go; mamma will be getting anxious. Come a little way with me, uncle, as you used to do." The Major walked by her side down to the creek, and watched her anxiously across the dilapidated bridge. "Don't come that way again," he called to her, as she reached the other end. "It's unsafe." "Mend it then, uncle," she called back to him. "For I like old paths--and old friends--best." The Major turned away with a smile. And all the way to the cottage he was saying to himself,-- "Perhaps I _had_ better make my will." XI. SLEEPLESS NIGHTS APPOINTED. Doctor Remy possessed in perfection the power of rapid concentration of thought. Otherwise, he would have taken a divided mind to the bedside of his second patient, that night, after leaving Bergan Hall. As it was, he was glad when the stroke of midnight set him free, body and mind; the one to find its way mechanically to the hotel, through the silent moonlighted streets of Berganton, the other to occupy itself in arranging and perfecting the details of a certain plan for his future advantage, which had suddenly shaped itself out before him, so distinctly, if roughly, that he had already taken an important step toward its accomplishment. It now remained to provide for the rest of the way.