'It is possible, even probable,' he said, 'that we may never meet again on earth. You have been hard and cruel to me, but I am not wholly unmindful of our relationship. Careless and extravagant I may have been--neither worse nor better than hundreds of men of my age and breeding, and may well have angered you. I had resolved, partly persuaded by Estelle, to humble myself and ask your pardon. That state of mind has passed--passed for ever. I shall leave Wychwood to-morrow, and if anything happens to me in Australia, where I am going, remember this--if evil comes to me, on your head be it--with my last words, in my dying hour, I shall curse and renounce you, as I do now.' As the boy spoke the last dreadful words, the older man, transported almost beyond himself, made as though he could have advanced and struck him. But with a strong effort he restrained himself. The younger never relaxed the intensity of his gaze, but with a slow and measured movement approached the door, then halting for a moment said--'Enjoy your triumph to the uttermost--think of me homeless and a wanderer--if it pleases you. But as repentant or forgiving, never--neither in this world nor the next.' Before the last words were concluded, Sir Mervyn turned his face with studied indifference to the window, and gazed upon the park, over which the last rays of the autumnal sun cast a crimson radiance. For a few moments only the solar beams glowed above the horizon; the landscape with strange suddenness assumed a pale, even sombre tone. A faint chill wind rustled the leaves of the great lime-tree, which stood on the edge of the lawn, and caused a few of the leaves to fall. When the squire looked around, Launcelot Trevanion was gone. He turned again to the window; mechanically his eye ranged over the lovely landscape, the far-stretching champaign of the park--one of the largest in the county, the winding river, the blue hills, the distant sea. 'What a madman the boy is,' he groaned out, to leave all this for a few hot words--and I too! Who is the wiser? I wonder. Will he be mad enough to keep his word? He is a stubborn colt--a true descendant of old Launcelot the wizard. If he fails to gather gold, as these fools expect, a voyage and a year's experience of what poverty and a rough life mean will be no bad teaching.' 'For what is anger but a wild beast?' quotes the humorist How many a man has, to his cost, been assured of this fact by personal experience. A wild beast truly, which tears and rends those whom nature itself fashions to be cherished.