Most of the letters of condolence which he received Lord Castlecombe tossed aside contemptuously after glancing at the first line. But one letter he read through, with a heavy frown on his face, and an occasional drawing down of the corners of his mouth into a bitter smile, far more sinister than the frown. It was from his niece Pauline; and its composition had cost her much thought and anxiety. She flattered herself that she had avoided saying a word which could jar on her uncle's irascible temper. And the letter in itself was a good letter enough; but it was a letter which should not have been written at all, if her object were to soothe and conciliate Lord Castlecombe. Pauline did not allude directly to her brother Augustus; but the very fact of her writing seemed to bring his existence offensively into notice. She refrained from expressing any special anxiety about the health of her cousin Lucius. Yet the few words in which she "hoped to hear of his speedy recovery," made the old man writhe as he read them. Pauline had tried to combine duty with policy. It was, of course, her duty to condole with her uncle in his bereavement, and it was clearly desirable not to irritate the dislike with which, as she more than surmised, he regarded Augustus. But the whole calculation was based on a misapprehension of Lord Castlecombe's feeling towards her brother. It was neither more nor less than hatred. And now jealousy was added to it:--a strange, savage jealousy, on behalf of his sons. George--his strong, healthy, hardy eldest-born--was gone. And Lucius--Lucius was not dying! No, no; not so bad as that. But he was very weakly. And to think for one instant of the possibility that Augustus Cheffington might some day reign in their stead--might lord it over the heritage which he had so carefully garnered for his own sons--was maddening. Any one but Augustus, he said to himself. Any distant scion, the son of some impoverished far-away cousin, parson, lawyer, apothecary. Any one, any one, but Augustus! But of the passionate intensity of this hatred Pauline had no suspicion. A cleverer and more acute woman than she might not have guessed it. No one, in fact, ever guessed it; unless it were Lucius, and he only in part. His own sensitive antipathy to Augustus was an incomparably feebler sentiment. Lucius had no strain of his father's vigour, whether for good or ill.