"You will be bored to death. Mark my words, I know you well enough. You will never be able to put up with it. You will be ready to hang yourself in a week. You will come off to me. It is the best thing that could happen so far as I am concerned--wishing to preserve your friendship as I do----" "Is it friendship, then, that has bound us together?" said Lord Erradeen. "What else? Disinterested friendship on my part. I take your laugh rather ill, Erradeen. What have I gained by it, I should like to know? I've liked you, and I liked the last man before you. I have put up with a great deal from you--tempers like a silly woman, vagaries of all sorts, discontent and abuse. Why have I put up with all that?" "Why indeed? I wish you had not," said the young man scornfully. "Yes, you have put up with it, and made your pupil think the worse of you with every fresh exercise of patience. I should like to pay you for all that dirty work." "Pay me!" the captain said, faltering a little. He was not a very brave man, though he could hold his own; and there was a force of passion and youth in his "pupil"--with what bitterness that word was said!--that alarmed him a little. Besides, Walter had a household of servants behind him--grooms, keepers, all sorts of people--who held Captain Underwood in no favour. "Pay me! I don't know how you could pay me," he said. "I should like to do it--in one way; and I shall do it--in another," said Walter still somewhat fiercely. Then once more he laughed. He took out a pocket-book from his coat, and out of that a cheque. "You have been at some expense on my account," he said; "your journey has been long and rapid. I consider myself your debtor for that, and for the--good intention. Will this be enough?" In the bitter force of his ridicule and dislike, Walter held out the piece of paper as one holds a sweetmeat to a child. The other gave a succession of rapid glances at it to make out what it was. When he succeeded in doing so a flush of excitement and eagerness covered his face. He put out his hand nervously to clutch it with the excited look of the child before whom a prize is held out, and who catches at it before it is snatched away. But he would not acknowledge this feeling. "My lord," he said, with an appearance of dignity offended, "you are generous; but to pay me, as you say, and offer money in place of your friendship----" "It is an excellent exchange, Underwood. This is worth something, if not very much--the other," said Walter with a laugh, "nothing at all."