Heaven's name, I've made a bigger blunder than the last!" said
the squire, with an odd thrill in his voice.

"It's not my fault; and there may still be time to undo it," said Paul,
rising, for the flush that crept to the major's temples warned him that
the interview had been too long and too exciting. "I would thank you,
if I could, for the thought of me, and I am sorry to have been the
cause of disappointment, but it would not have been honest to hide my
opinions."

"No; you've been honest enough, in all conscience. If there's yet
time----" He broke off, turning away his head, and taking no notice of
Paul's departure.

All that night Paul paced his room in deep thought. The scene he had
witnessed had stirred him more than a little; and it grieved him to his
heart that he had so seriously disturbed the last moments of a dying
man.

"But I could not have hoodwinked him," he thought; "no honest man
could. But to-morrow I'll prove to him that I am ready to help him in
any way that I can. If he will only talk quietly, and keep his temper,
he could surely suggest some more fitting heir than I; and the business
details could be fairly quickly settled if I could take down his wishes
and see his lawyer. He must yet have several days to live, I should
think, with his extraordinary vitality of brain."

At a very early hour the following morning, therefore, Paul presented
himself again at the house in the square, with the request that he
might have a short interview with the major.

"Very sorry, sir," said Smith, with an added gloom of manner, "but my
master's much worse; they don't think he'll live through the day. He
was very restless last night; and nothing would satisfy him but that I
should go off in the middle of the night and fetch Mr. Morgan--the
lawyer as wrote to you, sir; but when I got him here my master had lost
his power of speech. He knew Mr. Morgan quite well, but he could not
make him understand what he wanted."

"And now?" asked Paul, pitifully.

"The doctor is just coming down the stairs, and will speak to you, sir."

Paul went out into the hall to meet him. "How did you find the major?"
Paul inquired.

"Dead," replied the doctor, drawing on his gloves. "He died as I
entered the room."

CHAPTER III.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

"RUDHAM, Sunday Evening.

"DEAR SALLY,

"I did not, until now, believe myself a creature of impulse. That I am
one is proved by the fact that, as I dropped