Kester spoke with that assumption of warm-hearted impulsiveness which he knew so well how to put on. Five men out of six would have been thoroughly deceived by it. “I have not forgotten _you_,” said Richard, in reply. “Yours is a face that I could never forget. I shall not go back to India for some time to come—not till I have accomplished the task which has brought me here. You may take my word for that!” He spoke with a cold deliberation that made his words seem very impressive. Cold, too, and pulseless was the hand that he laid for a moment on Kester’s outstretched palm. But when he said, “You may take my word for that,” he gave his cousin’s hand a sudden sharp grip, and then dropped it. Kester shuddered and sat down. “Won’t you come and have some breakfast with us?” asked General St. George. “I breakfasted two hours ago, and have no appetite,” answered Richard. “Should you want me, you will find me under the big yew tree in the garden. I have put a volume of Dante in my pocket, and I am going to see whether I have quite forgotten my Italian.” “Fine fellow that; very fine,” said the General admiringly, as Richard shut the door behind him. “So earnest about everything—so determined to go through with any matter that he sets his heart upon.” “What can the particular task be which he has set himself to accomplish before going back to India?” asked Kester of himself. “I would give something to know. And yet, what can it matter to me? When once I get away from here I hope never to set eyes on him again. I shall travel for a couple of years; and by the time I get back home he will have returned to India. No; nothing can matter to me, now that Lionel Dering is dead, and that Park Newton is at last my own!” Lionel’s name had hardly been mentioned between uncle and nephew on the previous night. There had been a mutual avoidance of all unpleasant topics during the hour that intervened between Kester’s arrival and his retirement for the night. But the object of his visit to the Villa Pamphili was one, the discussion of which this morning could not much longer be postponed; and he thought it best to plunge at once into the subject himself, rather than leave it for his uncle to introduce. “How long was my cousin with you at this place before he died?” asked Kester. “It will be a month to-morrow since he came here,” answered the General. “I never got from him how he found me out—indeed, he was not in a fit state to be troubled with questions of any kind. It did not take long to discover that his days in this world were very few in number. The first few days after he came he brightened up, and seemed to be stronger and better. But there soon came a morning when he did not get up as usual—and he never got up again. He sank slowly but surely, and five days ago he died. His end was as peaceful as that of any little child.”