The weather this morning was heavy and overcast--very different from the bright morning of the twenty-fourth--and what light might otherwise have found its way into the room was still further toned down by the heavy curtains which festooned the two windows, and by the blinds which were drawn only half-way up. Still there was ample light to see the heavy, old-fashioned, four-post bedstead, and the haggard-faced man that lay upon it, supported by some half-dozen pillows. His grey duffel dressing-robe was thrown loosely over his shoulders, his black velvet skull cap was on his head, and his long grey locks, as they straggled from under it, looked as if they needed some woman's hand to comb them gently out. His cane lay on the coverlet within reach, so as to enable him to strike a small gong with it, which stood close by, when he wanted to summon his nurse from the next room. Finally, his cat's-eye ring gleamed on the second finger of his left hand, as it had gleamed there for forty years. In the grate a small fire was burning, while on a table close to the bed stood bottles containing medicines and cordials of various kinds. Mr. Charles Plackett walked up to the foot of the bed, and took a long steady gaze at the sick man.--"Good-morning, Mr. Denison," he said. "I suppose you know the object that has brought me here to-day?" "Aye, I know, I know," said the Squire wearily, in a low voice that had lost something of its harsh strident tones, and had acquired instead the hollowness that comes with protracted illness. "And now that you have seen me, much good may the sight do you!" he added, with a touch of his old grim irony. "Not that I intend any discourtesy to you, sir, so much as to them that have sent you." Mr. Plackett was not usually at a loss for words, but he evidently felt the awkwardness of his position this morning. He coughed softly behind his hand, and looked round at Dr. Jago, who responded by drawing up a couple of chairs and motioning the visitors into them. "I had the pleasure of meeting you once or twice in London some years ago, Mr. Denison," spoke the lawyer, by way of a lame beginning. "It may have been a pleasure to you, though I doubt it," retorted the Squire. "I can't say that it was much of a pleasure to me, knowing whom you represented. Come, now." Mr. Plackett gave vent to a dry little chuckle. It was a way he had in business when anything particularly disagreeable had been said to him. "Well, well, it is perhaps the wisest plan to let bygones be bygones," he said, "though, if I remember rightly, you had the better of me at those interviews.--Your cousin, Mr. Denison, of Nunham Priors----" "Titly-tutly, man alive!" broke in the Squire. "If you came here to talk to me about that viper--I say that viper, d'ye hear?--the sooner you pack yourself off the better.--You have seen me, and you have talked with me--what more do you want?"