“Pause!” interposed Mark, in a loud tone. “If you _will_ curse me, wait until you return to your library. There, sir, alone with that exquisitely truthful representative of my sainted mother, sink upon your knees, and, with your eyes bent on her soft, loving, tender orbs, call down your curse upon me--if you have the heart to do it. Farewell, sir! When we meet again, you shall yourself appoint the interview.” Once more he quitted him, with a rapid step, and Wilton staggered almost senseless back against the stem of a tree. The old man gasped for breath, and wrung his hands. What! was there no condition in life exempt from disappointed hopes, from harassing cares? What! did not ample estates and a large income secure uninterrupted happiness? In his dreams over his toiling labour, in the poverty-stricken home at Clerkenwell, memories of the past and anticipations of the future had built up for him a visionary state of untroubled serenity, should he ever again resume the position he had lost. With what pride he had, after his return to Harleydale, believed that it was secured to him. Where was it now? How he had gloated over the knowledge that a worm, was eating up the very heart of Grahame’s happiness. Lo! a canker had commenced to corrode his own. Was this visitation the retributive wrath of an offended Deity at his towering pride of position and his selfish paternal despotism? He felt his temples throb and ache, and his breast burn as he tried to thrust back the answer which sought to present itself. He folded his arms, and plunged deeper into the wood. He dared not face the portrait of his wife hanging in the library. It seemed to him that a voice would issue from those small lips and demand of him how he had kept his promise given to her in her dying moments to do his utmost to secure the happiness of his children. As he struck into a bye-path a pistol-shot was fired; he uttered a cry of mortal agony and fell bleeding to the ground. The next instant a figure emerged from the copse; it proved to be Mr. Chewkle. He bent over the prostrate form of Wilton. “Only winged him arter all!” he exclaimed; “thought I’d covered him, too. Never mind, I’ll do the trick this time. You shall have it through the head and no mistake, old gel’man.” He pointed the muzzle of a revolver to the temple of Wilton, but at the instant his finger pressed the trigger a pair of powerful hands seized him by the throat and dragged him back. The pistol was discharged, but the bullet, missing its destination, buried itself in the earth, a foot from Mr. Wilton’s head. Chewkle uttered a yell of terror, startled by the suddenness of the attack upon him. His first impression was that he had been pounced upon by Nathan Gomer, and that his were the fingers--of solid, burnished gold, cold as death--which now clutched him by the throat, and his heart beat violently.