"Retribution for what?" asked Roland, in a low but passionate voice. "Could I face the malevolence of the vulgar on one hand, and the scorn of my equals on the other?--no--oh no!" continued his father, speaking in a low voice, and at long gasping intervals, as if to himself. "It has been truly said, that 'manner and tone of voice may be made to give stabs, only less sharp and cowardly than vile and baseless calumny.... There is no insolence like the insolence of the well-born and well-bred; and the most vulgar and purse-proud wife of the most purse-proud plutocrat is altogether inferior in her capacity to inflict pain and give offence to the patrician lady of title.' I have been spared all that--for I cast the die in secret!" "What die?" asked Roland imploringly. The old man regarded him wildly, as if for a time he had forgotten his presence. "When I am dead and gone--dead and gone, dear Roland, you will know all." "Why not now?" "Because I--even hovering on the brink of eternity--blush to tell you. Oh, what a thing it is for a father to cower like a very craven before his only son, and yet, Roland, you know how I have loved you. When I am gone and buried, Roland, open the old Indian cabinet that I found on the day when the Royals stormed Scindia's fortress of Neembolah--read the sealed packet you will find there--and--and pray for me." These were almost the last coherent words his father spoke; and he uttered them with the veins in his temples throbbing, and as if the most bitter of all emotions, self scorn, wrung his heart, and then he seemed to sink fast. But he lingered for some days after this, and though his words, manner, and injunction, filled Roland with grief and intense curiosity, he resolved to obey him to the letter and not open the cabinet till end came, and the doctor assured him it was near now. "Under what hallucination can the poor old man be labouring?" thought Roland, as he sat alone in the stately dining-room--a veritable hall--and thought how proud he who was about to pass away to a dark and narrow home, had been of Ardgowrie and all its details and surroundings--its stately park where the deer made their lair among the green ferns, its dark blue loch full of pike, and the pine plantations where the pheasant pea-fowl were thick as the cones that lay around them.