“Again, I say, Glencore, you have no right to involve others in the penalty of her fault. Laying aside every higher motive, you can have no more right to deny your boy's claim to his rank and fortune than I or any one else. It cannot be alienated nor extinguished; by his birth he became the heir to your title and estates.” “He has no birth, sir, he is a bastard: who shall deny it? _You_ may,” added he, after a second's pause; “but where's your proof? Is not every probability as much against you as all documentary evidence, since none will ever believe that I could rob myself of the succession, and make over my fortune to Heaven knows what remote relation?” “And do you expect me to become a party to this crime?” asked Upton, gravely. “You balked me in one attempt at vengeance, and I think you owe me a reparation!” “Glencore,” said Upton, solemnly, “we are both of us men of the world,--men who have seen life in all its varied aspects sufficiently to know the hollowness of more than half the pretension men trade upon as principle; we have witnessed mean actions and the very lowest motives amongst the highest in station; and it is not for either of us to affect any overstrained estimate of men's honor and good faith; but I say to you, in all sincerity, that not alone do I refuse you all concurrence in the act you meditate, but I hold myself open to denounce and frustrate it.” “You do!” cried Glencore, wildly, while with a bound he sat up in his bed, grasping the curtain convulsively for support. “Be calm, Glencore, and listen to me patiently.” “You declare that you will use the confidence of this morning against me!” cried Glencore, while the lines in his face became indented more deeply, and his bloodless lips quivered with passion. “You take your part with _her!_” “I only ask that you would hear me.” “You owe me four thousand five hundred pounds, Sir Horace Upton,” said Glencore, in a voice barely above a whisper, but every accent of which was audible. “I know it, Glencore,” said Upton, calmly. “You helped me by a loan of that sum in a moment of great difficulty. Your generosity went farther, for you took, what nobody else would, my personal security.” Glencore made no reply, but, throwing back the bedclothes, slowly and painfully arose, and with tottering and uncertain steps approached a table. With a trembling hand he unlocked a drawer, and taking out a paper, opened and scanned it over. “There's your bond, sir,” said he, with a hollow, cavernous voice, as he threw it into the fire, and crushed it down into the flames with a poker. “There is now nothing between us. You are free to do your worst!” And as he spoke, a few drops of dark blood trickled from his nostril, and he fell senseless upon the floor. CHAPTER XI. SOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE