"Kester," he said, "something was told me the other day that I never heard of before; something that affects you."
"Something that affects me! What was it?" His tone was abrupt and full of suspicion.
"Mr. Wharton, the vicar of Duxley, told me that when my grandfather lay dying, he expressed a wish that if Uncle Arthur should die without children, the estate should come to me; but that an allowance of three thousand a year should be paid out of it to you as long as you lived."
"I have heard my uncle say many a time that my grandfather was in his dotage for months before he died," said Kester, contemptuously.
"Whether he was in his dotage or no, there is no doubt that such a wish was expressed by him. Strangely enough, his wish has come true as regards myself: why should it not come true in your case also?"
"Lionel Dering, what is it that you mean?"
"Simply this: Three thousand a year out of the Park Newton property belongs morally to you, and----"
"And you want to settle that sum on me?"
"I do."
"You propose, in all seriousness, to give me, Kester St. George, three thousand a year out of your income of eleven thousand?"
"In all seriousness, that is what I propose to do."
Kester's face flushed deeply. He got up, walked across the room, and stood looking out of the window for two or three minutes.
"No! a thousand times no!" he exclaimed at last with startling abruptness. "I cannot accept your offer."
"Is not the sum large enough?" asked Lionel.
"Not one penny piece, Lionel Dering, will I ever accept at your hands!"
"But why not? What is your objection?"
"Do not ask me. I would not tell you if I could. Let it suffice that my objection is insuperable and--let us never talk about this again." He rang the bell violently. "Pierre, cognac and seltzer. Do you do anything in the racing line?" asked Kester in his lightest tone as Pierre left the room.
"Nothing. I'm as fond of a horse as any man, but I'm profoundly ignorant of racing, and I never bet."
"That's a pity, because I could have put you up to one or two good things for the spring meetings. Fine institution--betting," added Kester, as he lighted another cigar. "It is one of the pleasantest of our vices, when judiciously pursued. When we win, it is a source of double gratification: we not only put money into our own pockets, but we take it out of the pockets of other people."
"And when you lose?" said Lionel.
"To bear one's losses like a man of the world and a gentleman is to prove that the teachings of philosophy have not been in vain."
"May I venture to hope that, as yet, you have had no occasion to seek consolation in the teachings of philosophy?"
"I won four thousand over the last St. Leger."
"For the present, then, the Stoics are at a discount.--Kester," said Lionel, abruptly breaking off the subject, "you won't object to come and see me at Park Newton?"
Kester was leaning back in his easy chair, watching the smoke-wreaths as they curled idly upwards from his cigar. His thick black eyebrows came together in a deep, meditative frown as he heard Lionel's question. For a minute or two he did not answer.
"Frankly, no. I'll come and see you," he said at last. "Why shouldn't I? It will pain me at first to go back to the old place as guest, where once I thought that I should be master. But, thank Heaven, I'm not one of the most impressionable of men, and the feeling will soon wear off. Yes, Lionel, I'll come and see you."
Lionel was pleased that he had succeeded so far. "Perhaps, after a time," he thought, "I may be able to persuade him to accept the three thousand a year."
"You will keep up the old place in proper style, I suppose?" said Kester presently.
"I shall live very quietly--at least for some time to come," said Lionel.
"Which means, I suppose, that you will see very little company, and not rest satisfied unless you can save two-thirds of your income. That you will breakfast and dine in that ugly little parlour which overlooks the fishpond, and snore by night inside the huge four-poster in the Griffin-room."
Lionel laughed his careless, good-hearted laugh. "To one count of your indictment I can plead guilty," he said. "I certainly have both breakfasted and dined in the parlour overlooking the fishpond. But, on the other hand, I have certainly never slept in the Griffin, which has been locked up ever since Uncle Arthur's death."
"Ah!" sighed Kester, and it sounded so like a sigh of relief or thankfulness that Lionel could not help noticing it. "No wonder you don't care to sleep in the Griffin," he added, after a brief pause. "With its oak-panelled walls, and its plumed bedstead that always put me in mind of a hearse, it used to give me a fit of horrors whenever I went into it; and yet my uncle would never sleep anywhere else."
It should be mentioned that the bedrooms at Park Newton were each of them individualized with a name--generally that of some bird, fish, or animal. Among others, there were the Dolphin, the Pelican, and the Griffin. Such had been the whim of one of the former owners of the place, and none of his successors had seen fit to alter the arrangement.
After a little more desultory conversation, Lionel rose to go. As he stood with his elbow resting on the chimney-piece, his eye was attracted by a brace of duelling pistols which hung on the wall close by. They were old-fashioned, clumsy-looking weapons, but deadly enough, no doubt, in efficient hands.
"With permission," said Lionel, as he took one down to examine. Kester took down the other. The one Lionel had taken was unloaded; the one in Kester's hands loaded--a fact of which Kester was quite aware. The day was dull, and Lionel took his pistol to the window, that he might examine it more closely. Kester stood by the chimney-piece on the other side of the room. As he stood thus, a terrible temptation took possession of him. "What if you were to kill him where he stands!" something seemed to whisper in his ear: and for a moment his whole being shrank back aghast. But for a moment only.
"I could shoot him dead on the spot, put the discharged pistol into his hand the moment after he had fallen, and no one could say that he had not shot himself. Park Newton would then be mine, and I should be revenged."
These thoughts flashed like lightning through Kester's brain. The room and everything in it seemed to recede and fade into nothingness--everything except that silent black-clothed figure by the window. Kester's heart beat strangely. His breath came in hot gasps. There were blood-red motes in his eyes--blood-red motes falling everywhere. Mechanically, and without any conscious volition on his part, his right arm went up to a line with his shoulder. The barrel was pointed straight at Lionel's head.
He paused and trembled. In another moment, for good or for ill, would have come the climax. Suddenly, and without warning, Pierre, the velvet-footed, flung open the door. "A telegram for you, sir," he said. "The messenger is waiting."
The pistol fell from Kester's nervous grasp Lionel looked up and was saved.
CHAPTER VIII.
A MIDNIGHT INTRUDER.
Lionel Dering found himself back at Park Newton three days earlier than he had intended. Mrs. Garside's sister in Paris having been suddenly taken ill, Mrs. Garside was telegraphed