"Oh, I know what you mean without so many words," interrupted Jack, scornfully. "Make your mind easy, I am not going to split upon you. Bah!" he added, as Stephen shook his head with sorrowful repudiation. "Do you suppose that I don't know that your man was instructed to keep it from me? What were you afraid of--that I should cut you out at the last moment? You judge me by your own standard, and you make a vast mistake. It isn't on account of the money--you are welcome to that--and you deserve it, for you've worked hard enough for it; no, it's not on that account, it's--but you wouldn't understand if I told you. I am going up now," and he sprang up the stairs quickly. Stephen followed him, and entered the room close behind him. The old man looked up, motioned with his hand to Jack, looked at the other two and quietly pointed to the door. Stephen's eyes closed and his lips shut as he hesitated for a moment, then he turned and left with the physician. "I think," said Sir Humphrey, blandly, and looking at his watch--one of a score left him by departed patients, "I think that I will go now, Mr. Davenant; I can do no good and my presence appears only to irritate your uncle." The great doctor departed, just thirty guineas richer than when he came, and Stephen went into the library and closed the door, and as he did so it almost seemed as if he had taken off a mask and left it on the mat outside. The set, calm expression of the face changed to one of fierce, uncontrollable anxiety and malice. With sullen step he paced up and down the room, gnawing--but daintily--at his nails, and grinding the white tombstones. "Another half hour," he muttered, "and the fool would have been too late? Will he tell the old man? Curse him; how I hate him! I was a fool to send for him--an idiot! What is he saying to him? What are they doing? Thank Heaven, that old knave Hudsley isn't there! They can't do anything--can't, can't! No, I am safe." Stephen Davenant need not have been so uneasy; Jack was not plotting against him, nor was the old man making a will in the Savage's favor. Jack stood beside the bed, waiting for one of the attacks of faintness to pass, looking down regretfully at the haggard, death-marked face, recalling the past kindnesses he had received from the old man, and remorsefully remembering their many quarrels and eventful separation. "Bad lot" as he was, no thought of lucre crossed the Savage's mind; he forgot even Stephen and the cowardly trick he had played him, and remembered only that he was looking his last on the old man, who, after his kind, had been good, and so far as his nature would allow it, generous to him. At last old Ralph opened his eyes. "Here at last," he said; and by an effort of the resolute will, he made himself heard distinctly, though every word cost him a breath. "I'm sorry I'm so late," he said; and his voice was husky. "I didn't know----" The old man looked at him shrewdly.