style="font-size:15px;"> "That would be to argue Mr. Carson a thorough scamp, my dear. I do not think he is that."
"How do you know--you say yourself you only saw him for thirty minutes--you can't read a man's character in that time."
"Perhaps not; but Mr. Carson appears to me to be an exceptionally well-conducted young gentleman; and, after all, Olive, supposing he does waste this money, you have always three thousand a year of your own which he cannot touch."
"And a husband I don't want," she replied bitterly. "Well, Mr. Dimbal, suppose I refuse this arrangement?"
"Well, in that case, my dear, the whole of the money goes to the Reverend Manners Brock, Rector of Casterwell."
"Yes, so I remember you told me before. Why, may I ask, does it go to him?"
"Really, my dear, I can hardly say. Mr. Brock was the most intimate friend of your father and Dr. Carson. Failing the fulfilment of his primary wish, it is evident your father decided to pass on the money to his best friend. That is how the will stands, though, as I have said, it is not easy to approve of it in all respects."
"It is a hard and cruel will," said Olive, despondently. "I am sure I don't wish to rob Mr. Carson or any one else of the money, but, on the other hand, I have no wish to become the wife of a man who is a complete stranger to me. My affections are not a regiment of soldiers, to be ordered about in this way."
"Well," said Mr. Dimbal, fishing up a blue envelope with a red seal from the depths of his black bag--"well, Olive, here is your father's letter. It may perhaps explain his reason for making what, I allow, is a most extraordinary disposition of his personalty."
Olive took the letter in silence, and, rising from her chair, opened it at the window with her back to the lawyer. It contained a single sheet of paper, on which were written eight lines in her father's well-known hand. They were shaky and faint, as though they had been penned--as indeed they were--by a dying man.
"My Darling Olive,
"When you read these lines you will know that it is my last wish and command that you should marry Angus Carson, to whom you have been engaged since your birth. Marry him, I implore you--not so much for the money, as, because if you do not become his wife, evil, terrible evil, will come of your refusal. If you ever loved me, if my memory is dear to you, fulfil my dying wish, and marry Angus Carson within a month of your twenty-first birthday. If you refuse, God help you!
"Your loving father,
"Mark Bellairs."
As white as ashes Olive let the paper flutter to the floor.
"What does it mean?" she murmured faintly. "My God, what can it mean?"
CHAPTER III.
AT THE MANOR HOUSE.
"What about to-day, Mallow?" asked Aldean, as with his friend and mentor he enjoyed a morning pipe, pacing the terrace of Kingsholme.
"The day is right enough," replied Laurence, morosely; and he looked with a jaundiced eye on the green country stretching beyond a fringe of trees towards the blue and distant hills.
"I don't think you are," retorted his lordship; "you have not spoken two words the whole of breakfast."
"I'm never fit for rational conversation till noon, Aldean. I should be tied up this morning."
"Liver!" grunted Aldean, with a fond look at his pipe. "Let's get out the 'gees,' and shake ourselves into good humour."
Mallow placed his hands on the young man's shoulders and swayed him to and fro. "That is all the shaking you need, Jim," said he, in a more amiable tone. "If I were as good-humoured as you I should be content--all the same, I wish you would confine yourself to the Queen's English."
"Your speech is like a hornet, the sting's in the tail. Have you read the papers this morning?"
"No," replied Mallow, listlessly. "What's in them?"
"The usual nothing. France is abusing us, Germany is envying us, Russia is warning us, and the U.S.A. are beginning to see that blood is thicker than foreign ditch-water."
"And what are we doing?"
"Holding our tongues and picking up unconsidered geographical trifles. Silence is ever golden annexation with us."
"Upon my word, Jim," said Mallow, with good-humoured astonishment, "you are getting beyond words of one syllable. You can actually construct a sentence with a visible idea in it."
"I am growing up, Mallow; age is coming upon me."
"Well, Jim, suppose we take a walk."
Aldean laughed, and pointed with the stem of his pipe towards the red roofs of the distant manor house, "Over there, I suppose?"
"Jim, you have no tact. If our steps do tend in that direction, wandering in devious ways, I--I--well, I have not forgotten that Miss Ostergaard is paying a visit to--to--Miss Slarge."
"True enough," replied Jim, winking. "Let us pay a visit to--to--Miss Slarge."
"We might do worse," said Mallow; and sighed.
"I expect we'll do better," was Aldean's response.
Mallow groaned. "Oh, Jim, Jim, I am a fool. I know that she is going to marry this Carson; and yet--and yet I cannot help making myself miserable by calling to see her."
"Buck up, old man, she isn't spliced yet!"
"James, you are incurably vulgar."
"If you pay me any more compliments, Mallow, I shall forget the respect to my former tutor, and chuck you out of this gangway. Come for a walk."
So Mallow allowed himself to be persuaded, and in due time, as he knew they inevitably would do, they found themselves in the grounds of the Manor House.
Striding up and down the lawn was an elderly lady with a lack-lustre eye and the gait of a grenadier.
"How do you do, Miss Slarge," said the visitors, almost simultaneously. And they waited for the priestess of Minerva to wake up and return their salutation.
Miss Rubina Slarge was a maiden of forty-five years. She was sufficiently well-looking to have married a score of times. However, early in life she had become convinced that it was her mission to expose the errors of the Romish Church, and she felt that for this purpose she should dispense with a husband. Her knowledge was extensive, but apt to be inaccurate. It was her firm impression that the idol worship of Babylon still existed in the Papal Church, and she was writing a voluminous book to prove this. Nimrod and his wife Semiramis were still worshipped, she declared, and the festivals and ritual of modern Rome were identical with those of ancient Babylon. She thought of little else, and lived in a world of Biblical prophecy and mythological lore. Therefore, although she was supposed ostensibly to look after Olive, that clear-headed young lady looked after her, and the house to boot. Olive called her Aunt Ruby, but she was really only a distant cousin, connected by blood with the late
