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But no—oh no! Roland felt his cheek crimson, as something seemed to whisper of this in his ear, and then he recalled his dead father's remorseful injunctions to himself.

He looked up at the portrait of the lost and disinherited Philip—the outcast son of a patrician race, as limned by the President of the Scottish Academy.

It represented a handsome young man, in a red hunting coat and cap, with regular but rather pale features, dark blue eyes and well defined eyebrows, with a pleasant smile that actually, to Roland's then distempered fancy, seemed to light up, as he looked on the portrait.

Roland wiped the beady perspiration from his brow, and a moan as if of pain escaped him, but again and again he muttered—

"Justice shall be done—justice if it be not too late—oh Heaven—too late!"

He stepped to the sideboard, filled a silver hunting cup with sherry, drained it at a draught, and taking up the two fatal documents, locked the Indian cabinet, and prepared to join Messrs. Hook and Crook, who were busy with certain accounts and papers in the library.