"You will remember where it is," he said, touching the desk, and looking at the lawyer. "The will is also here." Mrs. Tynn carried the desk back again; and Dr. West and the lawyer left the house together. Later, when Mr. Verner was in bed, he spoke to Lionel, who was sitting with him. "You will give heed to carry out my directions, Lionel, so far as I have left directions, after you come into power." "I will, sir," replied Lionel, never having had the faintest suspicion that he had been near losing his inheritance. "And be more active abroad than I have been. I have left too much to Roy and others. You are young and strong; don't you leave it to them. Look into things with your own eyes." "Indeed I will. My dear uncle," he added, bending over the bed, and speaking in an earnest tone, "I will endeavour to act in all things as though in your sight, accountable to God and my own conscience. Verner's Pride shall have no unworthy master." "Try to live so as to redeem the past." "Yes," said Lionel. He did not see what precise part of it he had to redeem, but he was earnestly anxious to defer to the words of a dying man. "Uncle, may I dare to say that I hope you will live yet?" he gently said. "It is of no use, Lionel. The world is closing for me." It was closing for him even then, as he spoke--closing rapidly. Before another afternoon had come round, the master of Verner's Pride had quitted that, and all other pride, for ever. CHAPTER XVII. DISAPPEARED. Sweeping down from Verner's Pride towards the church at Deerham came the long funeral train--mutes with their plumes and batons, relays of bearers, the bier. It had been Mr. Verner's express desire that he should be carried to the grave, that no hearse or coaches should be used. "Bury me quietly; bury me without show," had been his charge. And yet a show it was, that procession, if only from its length. Close to the coffin walked the heir, Lionel; Jan and Dr. West came next; Mr. Bitterworth and Sir Rufus Hautley. Other gentlemen were there, followers or pall-bearers; the tenants followed; the servants came last. A long, long line, slow and black; and spectators gathered on the side of the road, underneath the hedges, and in the upper windows at Deerham, to see it pass. The under windows were closed. A brave heir, a brave master of Verner's Pride! was the universal thought, as eyes were turned on Lionel, on his tall, noble form, his pale face stilled to calmness, his dark hair. He chose to walk bare-headed, his hat, with its sweeping streamers, borne in his hand. When handed to him in the hall he had not put it on, but went out as he was, carrying it. The rest, those behind him, did not follow his example; they assumed their hats; but Lionel was probably unconscious of it, probably he never gave it a thought.