my child--Clare's death? Is not one in a family enough?
Think of your dear young wife--we love her so!--your child!--your
father! Will you kill us all?"

Mrs. Doria had chanced to overhear a trifle of Ripton's communication to
Adrian, and had built thereon with the dark forces of a stricken soul.

Wondering how this woman could have divined it, Richard calmly said:
"It's arranged--the matter you allude to."

"Indeed!--truly, dear?"

"Yes."

"Tell me"--but he broke away from her, saying: "You shall hear the
particulars to-morrow," and she, not alive to double meaning just then,
allowed him to leave her.

He had eaten nothing for twelve hours, and called for food, but he
would take only dry bread and claret, which was served on a tray in the
library. He said, without any show of feeling, that he must eat before
he saw the young hope of Raynham: so there he sat, breaking bread, and
eating great mouthfuls, and washing them down with wine, talking of what
they would. His father's studious mind felt itself years behind him, he
was so completely altered. He had the precision of speech, the bearing
of a man of thirty. Indeed he had all that the necessity for cloaking an
infinite misery gives. But let things be as they might, he was, there.
For one night in his life Sir Austin's perspective of the future was
bounded by the night.

"Will your go to your wife now?" he had asked and Richard had replied
with a strange indifference. The baronet thought it better that their
meeting should be private, and sent word for Lucy to wait upstairs. The
others perceived that father and son should now be left alone. Adrian
went up to him, and said: "I can no longer witness this painful sight,
so Good-night, Sir Famish! You may cheat yourself into the belief that
you've made a meal, but depend upon it your progeny--and it threatens
to be numerous--will cry aloud and rue the day. Nature never forgives!
A lost dinner can never be replaced! Good-night, my dear boy. And
here--oblige me by taking this," he handed Richard the enormous envelope
containing what he had written that evening. "Credentials!" he exclaimed
humorously, slapping Richard on the shoulder. Ripton heard also the
words "propagator--species," but had no idea of their import. The wise
youth looked: You see we've made matters all right for you here, and
quitted the room on that unusual gleam of earnestness.

Richard shook his hand, and Ripton's. Then Lady Blandish said her
g