ved, why should the engagement continue? But had an
opportunity been given him? He had not had speech with her since that
evening when she had drawn his face to hers. No, it could not be that.

He bowed his head, and then Anger came and sat at his side. What had he
done to Destiny that he should be to it the play-thing that he was? But
she; she was more voracious even than Fate. No, it was damnable. Why
should she take his heart and torment it? Why, having given love, should
she take it away? He was contented enough until he saw her. Why had she
come to him as the one woman in the world, luring him on; yes, for she
had lured him on? Why had she made him love her as he could never love
again, and just when she placed her hand in his,--a mist, a phantom, a
reproach? Why had she done so? Why was the engagement untenable?
Untenable, indeed, why was it untenable? Why--why--why? And in the
increasing exasperation of the moment, Tristrem did a thing that, with
him, was unusual. He rang the bell, and bade the servant bring him
drink.

It was on the afternoon of that day that he learned the tenor of his
father's will. It affected him as a chill affects a man smitten with
fever. He accepted it as a matter of course. It was not even the last
drop; the cup was full as it stood. What was it to him that he had
missed being one of the richest men in New York in comparison to the
knowledge that even had he the mines of Ormuz and of Ind, the revenue
would be as useless to him as the hands of the dead? Was she to be
bought? Had she not taken herself away before the contents of the will
were reported? He might be able to call the world his own, and it would
avail him nothing.

The will left him strangely insensible, though, after all, one may
wonder whether winter is severer than autumn to a flower once dead.

But if the will affected Tristrem but little, it stirred Dirck Van
Norden to paroxysms of wrath. "He ought to have his ghost kicked," he
said, in confidential allusion to Erastus Varick. "It's a thing that
cries out to heaven. And don't you tell me, sir, that nothing can be
done."

The lawyer with whom he happened to be in consultation said there were
many things that could be done. Indeed, he was reassuringly fecund in
resources. In the first place, the will was holographic. That, of
course, mattered nothing; it only pointed a moral. Laymen should not
draw up their own wills. For that matter, even professionals should be
as w