"Eh--yes," replied Vincent, with frigid coldness, relapsing into himself and the fine gentleman. "I wish you the best of good luck," returned Roland, heartily shaking the somewhat unwilling hand with a grip that he might have learned at Port Natal. "And I hope she'll make you as good a wife as I know somebody else will make me. Good night, Vincent, I'm off." Vincent nodded. It struck him that, with all his drawbacks and deficiencies, Roland was rather a nice young fellow. Outside the club door stood a hansom. Roland, in his eagerness and haste, was only kept from bolting into it by the slight deterrent accident of having no change in his pocket to pay the fare. He did not lose much. The speed at which he tore up Regent Street might have kept pace with the wheels of most cabs; and the resounding knock and ring he gave at Sir Richard's door in Portland Place, must surely have caused the establishment to think it announced the arrival of a fire-escape. The door was flung open on the instant, as if to an expected visitor. But that Roland was not the one waited for, was proved by the surprise of the servant. He arrested the further entrance. "You are not the doctor!" "Doctor!" said Roland, "I am no doctor. Let me pass if you please. I am Mr. Roland Yorke." "I beg your pardon, sir," said the man, recognizing the name as one borne by a nephew of the house. "You can go up, sir, of course if you please, but my master is just taken ill. He has got a stroke." "Bless me!" cried Roland, in concern. "Is it a bad one?" "I'm afraid it is for death, sir," whispered the man. "We left him at his wine after dinner, all comfortable; and when we went in a few minutes ago, there he was, drawed together so that you couldn't know him, and no breath in his body that we could hear. The nearest doctor's coming, and James is running to fifteen likely places to see if he can find Mr. Vincent." "I'll go for him; I know where he is," cried Roland. And without further reflection he hailed another hansom that happened to be passing, jumped into it and ordered it to the clubhouse. Vincent was only then coming down the steps. He took Roland's place and galloped home. "I hope he'll be in time," thought Roland. "Poor old Dick!" He was not in time. And the next morning London woke up to the news of Sir Richard Yorke's sudden death from an attack of apoplexy. And his son, the third baronet, had succeeded to the family estates and honours as Sir Vincent Yorke. CHAPTER XXII. A LITTLE MORE LIGHT. Something fresh, though not much, had turned up, relating to the case of the late Mr. Ollivera. That it should do so after so many years had elapsed--or, rather, that it should not have done so before--was rather remarkable. But as it bears very little upon the history in its present stage, it may be dismissed in a chapter.