The moon shone peacefully over mere and fell, and on the time-worn church of Golden Friars, and through the window, bright, on the grey flags that lie over Sir Harry Rokestone. Never did she keep serener watch over the first night of a mortal's sleep in his last narrow bed. Richard Marston saw this pure light, and musing, looked from the window. It shone, he thought, over his wide estate. Beyond the mere, all but Clusted, for many a mile was his own. At this side, away in the direction of distant Haworth, a broad principality of moss and heath, with scattered stretches of thin arable and pasture, ran side by side with the Mardykes estate, magnificent in vastness, if not in rental. His dreams were not of feudal hospitality and the hearty old-world life. His thoughts were far away from this grand scenery or lonely Dorracleugh. Ambition built his castles in the air; nothing very noble. It was not even the tawdry and tradesman-like ambition of modern times. He had no taste for that particular form of meanness, nor patience for its drudgery. He would subscribe to election funds, place his county influence at the disposal of the minister; spend money on getting and keeping a seat; be found in his place whenever a critical vote was impending; and by force of this, and of his county position, and the old name--for he would take the name of Rokestone, in spite of his uncle's awkward direction about his epitaph, and no one could question his relationship--by dint of all this, with, I daresay, the influence of a high marriage, he hoped to get on, not from place to place, but what would answer him as well, from title to title. First to revive the baronetage, and then, after some fifteen or twenty years more of faithful service, to become Baron Rokestone, of Dorracleugh. It was not remorse, then, that kept the usurper's eyes wide open, as he lay that night in the dark in his bed, his brain in a fever. His conscience had no more life in it than the window-stone. It troubled him with no compunction. There was at his heart, on the contrary, a vindictive elation at having defeated with so much simplicity the unnatural will of his uncle. Bright rose the sun next morning over Dorracleugh, a sun of good omen. Richard Marston had appointed three o'clock as the most convenient hour for all members of the conference, for a meeting and a formality. A mere formality, in truth, it was, a search for the will of Sir Harry Rokestone. Mr. Blount had slept at Dorracleugh. Mr. Jarlcot, a short, plump man, of five-and-fifty, with a grave face and a bullet head, covered with short, lank, black hair, accompanied by his confidential man, Mr. Spaight, arrived in his gig, just as the punctual clock of Dorracleugh struck three.