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"I will have no clergyman about me," said the sufferer, petulantly and almost passionately, in reply to some remark of Roland's.

"Why?"

"I hope to make my peace with God alone. The Reverend Ephraim Howie, to whom I gave the living of Ardgowrie! What can he, or such as he, do for me now?"

"Oh, father!"

"No one ever prospered who grew rich by fraud, it has been said—yet have I, in a manner, prospered," added the old man, as if communing with himself.

"You, father?" exclaimed Roland, whose blood seemed to grow very cold.

"Yes—I."

"How—how?"

"I cannot—dare not tell you. Hush!" he added, glancing stealthily about, as Mr. Runlet, the butler, placed two shaded candles, in massive antique silver holders, on the toilet table, and withdrew, and Roland thought—

"Poor old man—his mind wanders!"

"My mind is not wandering."

"I never said so, father."

"But you seem to think so—I can read it in your eyes. I have been successful in life, and leave at death a handsome fortune to one who has no right to it—you, my son—you whom I love better than my own soul!" he exclaimed, in a broken voice that seemed full of tears, and a great horror began to possess the heart of the listener.