t, yet more ghastly, day, sat the
hired watchers of the dead.

I bade them leave me, and kneeling down beside the coffin, I poured out
the last expressions of my grief. I rose, and was retiring once more to
my room, when I encountered Gerald.

"Morton," said he, "I own to you, I myself am astounded by my uncle's
will. I do not come to make you offers; you would not accept them: I do
not come to vindicate myself, it is beneath me; and we have never been
as brothers, and we know not their language: but I _do_ come to demand
you to retract the dark and causeless suspicions you have vented against
me, and also to assure you that, if you have doubts of the authenticity
of the will, so far from throwing obstacles in your way, I myself will
join in the inquiries you institute and the expenses of the law."

I felt some difficulty in curbing my indignation while Gerald thus
spoke. I saw before me the persecutor of Isora, the fraudulent robber of
my rights, and I heard this enemy speak to me of aiding in the inquiries
which were to convict himself of the basest, if not the blackest, of
human crimes; there was something too in the reserved and yet insolent
tone of his voice which, reminding me as it did of our long aversion
to each other, made my very blood creep with abhorrence. I turned away,
that I might not break my oath to Isora, for I felt strongly tempted to
do so; and said in as calm an accent as I could command, "The case
will, I trust, require no king's evidence; and, at least, I will not
be beholden to the man whom my reason condemns for any assistance in
bringing upon himself the ultimate condemnation of the law."

Gerald looked at me sternly. "Were you not my brother," said he, in a
low tone, "I would, for a charge so dishonouring my fair name, strike
you dead at my feet."

"It is a wonderful exertion of fraternal love," I rejoined, with a
scornful laugh, but an eye flashing with passions a thousand times more
fierce than scorn, "that prevents your adding that last favour to those
you have already bestowed on me."

Gerald, with a muttered curse, placed his hand upon his sword; my own
rapier was instantly half drawn, when, to save us from the great guilt
of mortal contest against each other, steps were heard, and a number of
the domestics charged with melancholy duties at the approaching rite,
were seen slowly sweeping in black robes along the opposite gallery.
Perhaps that interruption restored both of us to our