June had come upon us leading this placidly monotonous life, when, returning one afternoon from a ramble after specimens, I found my father sitting upstairs in a mood so preoccupied that he did not notice my entrance. His head was bowed, his left arm drooping over one end of the table. Suddenly hearing my footsteps in the room, he started and a gold coin fell from his hand and spun and tinkled on the boards. “What’s that?” I said. He stooped and clutched it, and hugging it to his breast looked up in my face with startled eyes. But he gave no answer. “Is it necessary to change another, dad?” “No,” he muttered. A thought stung me like a wasp. “Is it for a bribe?” I demanded. Still he kept silence. “Father,” I said, “give it to me.” “Renalt--I can’t; I mustn’t.” “Give it to me. If you refuse--I threaten nothing--but--give it to me!” He held it forth in a shaking hand. I took it and slipped it into my pocket. “Now,” I said, sternly, “I am going to see Dr. Crackenthorpe.” He rose from his chair with a cry. “You are mad, I tell you! You can do nothing--nothing.” “It is time this ceased for good and all, father. I stand between you now--remember that. You have to choose between me and that villain. Which is it to be?” “Renalt--my son. It is for your sake!” “I can look after my own interests. Which is it to be?” He dropped back into his chair with a groan. “Go, then,” he muttered, “and God help you!” I turned and left him. My heart was blazing with a fierce resentment. But I would not leave the house till my veins ran cooler, for no advantage of temper should be on the side of that frosty bloodsucker. I wandered downstairs, past the door of the room of silence, but the rough jeering of the wheel within drove me away to where I could be out of immediate earshot of it. From the kitchen at the back came the broken, whining voice of old Peggy Rottengoose, who yet survived and waited upon the meager household with a ghoulish faithfulness that no time could impair. The words of some sardonic song came sterilely from her withered lips. She was apt at such grewsome ditties: “I saw three ravens up a tree-- Heigho! I saw three ravens up a tree; And they were black as black could be-- All down by the greenwood side, O! “I stuck my penknife in their hearts-- Heigho! I stuck my penknife in their hearts; And the more I stuck it the blood gushed out; All down by the greenwood side, O!” I softly pushed open the door, that stood ajar, and looked in. The old creature was sitting crooning in a chair, a picture or print of some kind, at which she was gazing in a sort of hungry ecstasy, held out and down before her at arm’s length. I stole on tiptoe behind her and sought to get a glimpse at that she devoured with her rheumy eyes. “Why, what are you doing with that, Peg?” I said, with a start of surprise.