'And all this has come of my own folly at Eaglescraig! damme, I'll--I'll--choke!' added the general, pale with anger, and feeling awkwardly conscious of the futility of it, with a genuine and honest fear of the future, through his unjust ideas of Cecil Falconer's character. 'Dear old grand-uncle, you have been more than a father to me, ever since I was a tiny tot, just so high,' said Mary, holding a little white hand about six inches from the carpet; 'and you must pardon me for all this--for Cecil does so love me,' she urged with tears, 'most tenderly and truly.' 'Folly--folly, all! has life, has position, no other claim on you than that? One born of such lineage as ours,' he continued, vaulting on his hobby-horse, 'requires to consider matters deeply. Disobey me, and I hand over your fortune to Hew; it shall never be made ducks and drakes of by a gambler and adventurer! By your father's will (how often am I to tell you this?) it is absolutely in my power to disinherit you, if you wed without my consent.' 'A most cruel and illegal will!' 'Devised to save you from yourself, and with a strange prevision of that which was to come.' 'Unjust! why should the dead be so loth to lose their grasp on, their power over, the living?' 'Your father's great dread was fortune-hunters, lest you should be sought--as Falconer seeks you--for your money. Moreover, if this young fellow really loves you, child, he ought to think more of your happiness than daring to seek your hand.' 'Daring?' 'Yes, I say so, considering his origin! You are a romantic little goose! But girls in your position must not think of men in his.' 'Were you not a captain once?' asked Mary, softly. 'Yes, and a jolly ensign too; but then, as now, I was Piers Montgomerie of the Eaglescraig! My darling Mary, you are the apple of my old eye, and I should like to see you safe and sound under Hew's protection, ere the last bugle sounds for me, and summons me away to the Land of the Leal; Hew, save yourself, is the nearest to me in blood now that my Piers is gone, finding his grave I know not where--know not where!' he added in a broken voice, as he recalled the real or fancied, but terrible vision he had seen years ago, now. 'If money can bring happiness you and Hew should certainly have something very like it,' said he, returning to the charge. 'We should be very, very miserable--at least I should--with all our united wealth.' 'Tut, tut! how much more miserable would you be without it?' asked the general; 'and yet, sooth to say, pet Mary, I shall give you even to Hew grudgingly.' 'Why?' asked Mary, hopefully. 'Because,' said the old man, with great tenderness, drawing her head into his neck, 'then you will be for ever, not mine as you are now, little one, but another's! Where Hew goes, you will go; our old life will be gone; a new one will open to you, and I shall be a lonely, old, old man, lonely as when, years ago, I lost Piers!'