o the post-obit?"

"Not yet; I have not pressed it; I wait the right moment, if necessary."

"It will be necessary."

"Ah, you wish it. It shall be so."

Randal Leslie again paced the room, and after a silent self-commune came
up close to the baron, and said,

"Look you, sir, I am poor and ambitious; you have tempted me at the
right moment, and with the right inducement. I succumb. But what
guarantee have I that this money will be paid, these estates made mine
upon the conditions stipulated?"

"Before anything is settled," replied the baron, "go and ask my
character of any of our young friends, Borrowell, Spendquick--whom you
please; you will hear me abused, of course; but they will all say this
of me, that when I pass my word, I keep it. If I say, 'Mon cher, you
shall have the money,' a man has it; if I say, 'I renew your bill for
six months,' it is renewed. 'T, is my way of doing business. In all
cases any word is my bond. In this case, where no writing can pass
between us, my only bond must be my word. Go, then, make your mind clear
as to your security, and come here and dine at eight. We will call on
Peschiera afterwards."

"Yes," said Randal, "I will at all events take the day to consider.
Meanwhile, I say this, I do not disguise from myself the nature of the
proposed transaction, but what I have once resolved I go through with.
My sole vindication to myself is, that if I play here with a false die,
it will be for a stake so grand, as once won, the magnitude of the prize
will cancel the ignominy of the play. It is not this sum of money for
which I sell myself,--it is for what that sum will aid me to achieve.
And in the marriage of young Hazeldean with the Italian woman, I have
another, and it may be a larger interest. I have slept on it lately,--I
wake to it now. Insure that marriage, obtain the post-obit. from
Hazeldean, and whatever the issue of the more direct scheme for which
you seek my services, rely on my gratitude, and believe that you will
have put me in the way to render gratitude of avail. At eight I will be
with you."

Randal left the room.

The baron sat thoughtful. "It is true," said he to himself, "this young
man is the next of kin to the Hazeldean estate, if Frank displease his
father sufficiently to lose his inheritance; that must be the clever
boy's design. Well, in the long-run, I should make as much, or more, out
of him than out of the spendthrift Frank. Frank's faults are those of
y