‘I fear my brother’s weakness. He may leave all to this young vagabond. He’s been conscience-haunted about Moya Macartney’s death ever since it happened, and I know that more than once he has made his will in favour of the Squireen. There’s not a square yard of the estate entailed. He could leave it to a beggar in the street if he liked, and Dick would get nothing but the title. I’m as certain as I can be that he has sent for you to make a will; and with that old rascal Peebles always whispering in his ears, praising the bastard, and running down Dick, there’s danger.’ ‘Well?’ asked the lawyer, after a pause. ‘Well?’ Conseltine’s smooth voice echoed him. There was silence for a full minute, during which Feagus sat looking over his glass from father to son. ‘Plain speech is best, Mr. Conseltine. I’m a friend of the family--a humble friend--and I’d like to see justice. Will ye spake straight, and say what ye’d have done?’ Conseltine smiled with half-shut eyes. ‘I thought you’d understand me,’ he said coolly. ‘I’m sure that the interests of the family are safe in your hands, and you may be sure that the family won’t be ungrateful.’ ‘Ye can trust me, sor,’ said Feagus. ‘I’ll take care that justice is done. Ye needn’t fear your brother’s wakeness if I have the drawin’ o’ the will.’ Conseltine nodded again. The worthy trio brought their glasses together with a light chink, and drank. ‘You see now,’ continued Conseltine, ‘why Blake has to be humoured. He’s capable of blowing on us in one of his drunken tantrums, and then the whole story would be ripped up.’ Feagus nodded. ‘Keep out of his way, Mr. Feagus, or, if you meet him, control your temper. That’s all I wanted to say, and I think we understand each other.’ ‘Fairly well,’ said Feagus. ‘’Tis a pretty kettle o’ fish I’m stirring,’ he said to himself, when father and son had left him alone; ‘but I’ll be surprised if I don’t keep the biggest trout for my own share. I’ll help Conseltine to get the estates, and then I’ll be on his back like the old man o’ the sea on Sinbad’s. Here’s success to virtue! ‘’tis a fine drink this, and ’tis not often, Jack Feagus, that ye get the chance of drinkin’ real wine out of a live lord’s cellar.’ Lord Kilpatrick had meanwhile been conducted to the drawing-room by the faithful, though outwardly unsympathetic, Peebles. Sitting at the open oriel window in a high-backed antique chair, he drew in the soft evening air with tremulous gulps. His face, which in youth and manhood had been singularly handsome, was drawn with pain and pettish anger, and wore that peculiar gray tinge so often seen in the complexions of people afflicted with diseases of the heart. His long, waxen fingers drummed irritably on the arm-pieces of his chair, so that the rings with which they were decorated cast out coruscations of coloured light.