"I think he really was coming gradually not to think quite so ill of you as he did," said good Mr. Blount. "No sherry, no biscuit--no, I shan't mind. I know, sir, that under great and sudden temptation a man may do the thing he ought not to have done, and repent from his heart afterwards, and from very horror of his one great lapse, may walk, all the rest of his life, not only more discreetly, but more safely than a man who has never slipped at all. But Sir Harry was sensitive and fiery. He had thought that you were to represent the old house, and perhaps to bear the name after his death; and that both should be slurred by, if I may be allowed the expression, a shabby crime...." "Once for all, Mr. Blount, you'll be good enough to remember that such language is offensive and intolerable," interrupted Richard Marston, firmly and sharply. "My uncle had a right to lecture me on the subject--you can have none." "Except as a friend," said Mr. Blount. "I shall, however, for the future, observe your wishes upon that subject. You got my letter about the funeral, I see." "Yes, they are doing everything exactly as you said," said Marston, recovering his affability. "Here is the letter," said Mr. Blount. "You should run your eye over it." "Ha! It is dated a long time ago," said Mr. Marston. "It was no sudden presentiment, then. How well he looked when I was leaving this!" "We are always astonished when death gives no warning," said Mr. Blount; "it hardly ever does to the persons most interested. Doctors, friends, they themselves, are all in a conspiracy to conceal the thief who has got into the bed-room. It matters very little that the survivors have had warning." Richard Marston shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. "Some day I must learn prudence," said he. "Let it be the true prudence," said Mr. Blount. "It is a short foresight that sees no further than the boundary of this life." Mr. Marston opened the letter, and the old gentleman left him, to see after the preparations. Some one at Golden Friars--I think it was the vicar--sent me the country paper, with a whole column in mourning, with a deep black edge, giving a full account of the funeral of Sir Harry Rokestone, of Dorracleugh. The ancient family whose name he bore was now extinct. I saw in the list the names of county people who had come in their carriages more than twenty miles to attend the funeral, and people who had come by rail hundreds of miles. It was a great county gathering mostly that followed the last of the Rokestones, of Dorracleugh, to the grave. CHAPTER LXIX. SEARCH FOR THE WILL. The funeral was over; but the old house of Dorracleugh was not quiet again till the night fell, and there was no more to-ing and fro-ing in the stable-yard, and the last tenant had swallowed his last draught of beer, and mounted and ridden away through the mist, over the fells, to his distant farm.