‘Your father was always a proud man, John. Perhaps I liked him all the better for that. Most men in his position would have courted me for the sake of my money. He never did that.’ ‘It was not in him to do it, sir. He had his faults, I have no doubt, but a sordid nature was not one of them.’ ‘I know that,’ answered Jasper Treverton, ‘nor have you ever sought me out, John, or tried to worm yourself into my favour. Yet I suppose you know that you are my sole surviving relative.’ ‘Yes, sir, I am quite aware of that.’ ‘And you have left me in peace, and have been content to take your chance. Well, you will find yourself none the worse off for having respected yourself and not worried me.’ John Treverton’s face flushed, and the beating of his heart quickened again, as it had quickened when Laura Malcolm told him of his kinsman’s vow. ‘My death will make you a rich man,’ returned Jasper, always speaking with a painful effort, and in so low a voice that John was obliged to bend over his pillow in order to hear him, ‘on one condition--a condition which I do not think you will find it difficult to comply with.’ ‘You are very good, sir,’ faltered the young man, almost too agitated to speak. ‘Believe me, I had no expectation of this.’ ‘I dare say not,’ replied the other. ‘I took a foolish oath some years ago, and bound myself not to leave my fortune to the only creature I really love. To whom else should I leave it then, but to you--my next of kin? I know nothing against you. I have lived too remote from the world to hear its scandals, and I know not whether you have won good or evil repute among your fellow men; but I do know that you are the son of a man I once loved, and that it will be in your power to carry out my wishes in the spirit, if not in the letter. The rest I trust to Providence.’ After having said this the dying man lay back upon the pillows, and remained silent for some minutes, resting after the exertion involved in so long a speech. John Treverton waited for him to speak again--waited with a tumultuous sense of gladness in his breast, looking round the room now and then. It was a spacious apartment, with handsome antique furniture, and panelled walls hung with old pictures, like those in the dining-room below. Dark-green velvet curtains were closely drawn before the three lofty windows, and in the spaces between them there were curious old cabinets of carved ebony, inlaid with silver. John Treverton looked at all these things, which seemed to be his already, after what the dying man had said to him. How different from the home he had left, the shabby-genteel London lodging, with its tawdry finery and decrepit chairs and tables! ‘What do you think of my adopted daughter, John Treverton?’ the old man asked presently, turning his dim eyes towards his cousin. The younger man hesitated a little before replying. The question had taken him by surprise. His thoughts had been far away from Laura Malcolm.