Part 2 (1/2)

”Bid him hither”

Promptly, in answer to that su his mother the dissolute Ralph Tressilian's second wife He was as unlike Sir Oliver in body as in soul He was coentle, almost woolden, and his eyes of a deep blue He had a very charrace--for he was but in his twenty-first year--and he dressed with all the care of a Court-gallant

”Has that whelp Godolphin been to visit you?” he asked as he entered

”Aye,” growled Sir Oliver ”He cas and to hear some others in return”

”Ha I passed hi

'Tis a e of men, Lal” Sir Oliver stood up booted ”I ae a coht-pressed lips and resolute air supplemented his words so well that Lionel clutched his arm

”You're not you're not?”

”I am” And affectionately, as if to soothe the lad's obvious alarm, he patted his brother's shoulder ”Sir John,” he explained, ”talks too o to teach him the virtue of silence”

”There will be trouble, Oliver”

”So there will--for hi of me that I am a pirate, a slave-dealer, a murderer, and Heaven knohat else, he must be ready for the consequences But you are late, Lal Where have you been?”

”I rode as far as Malpas”

”As far as Malpas?” Sir Oliver's eyes narrowed, as was the trick with hinet draws you thither,” he said ”Be wary, boy You go too much to Malpas”

”How?” quoth Lionel a trifle coldly

”I mean that you are your father's son Reme you to his own end I have just been reood Master Peter Go not over often to Malpas, I say No er brother's shoulders and the war quite ione, Lionel sat him down to dine, with Nick to wait on him

He ate but little, and never addressed the old servant in the course of that brief repast He was very pensive In thought he followed his brother on that avenging visit of his to Arwenack Killigreas no babe, but man of his hands, a soldier and a seaman If any harht; and then almost despite him his mind ran on to calculate the consequences to himself His fortune would be in a very different case, he refected In a sort of horror, he sought to put so detestable a reflection from his mind; but it returned insistently It would not be denied It forced him to a consideration of his own circumstances

All that he had he owed to his brother's bounty That dissolute father of theirs had died as suchbehind him heavily encumbered estates and ed, and the ambled, or spent on one or another of Ralph Tressilian's hts o' love Then Oliver had sold some little property near Helston, inherited from his mother; he had sunk the money into a venture upon the Spanish Main He had fitted out and manned a shi+p, and had sailed with Hawkins upon one of those ventures, which Sir John Killigreas perfectly entitled to account pirate raids He had returned with enough plunder in specie and geain and returned still wealthier Andhis ease He loved his ease His nature was inherently indolent, and he had the wasteful extravagant tastes that usually go with indolence He was not born to toil and struggle, and none had sought to correct the shortcos of his character in that respect Soht hold for hiht not be as easy as it was at present But he did not seriously fear It was not in his nature--it never is in the natures of such ive any excess of consideration to the future When his thoughts did turn to it in momentary uneasiness, he would abruptly dismiss them with the reflection that when all was said Oliver loved him, and Oliver would never fail to provide adequately for all his wants

In this undoubtedly he was fully justified Oliver was more parent than brother to hiht hoed husband--and a shocking spectacle that sinner's death had been with its hasty terrified repentance--he had entrusted Lionel to his elder brother's care At the time Oliver was seventeen and Lionel twelve But Oliver had seee, that the ted Ralph Tressilian had come to depend upon this steady, resolute, and e It was into his ear that the dying man had poured the wretched tale of his repentance for the life he had lived and the state in which he was leaving his affairs with such scant provision for his sons For Oliver he had no fear It was as if with the prescience that comes to men in his pass he had perceived that Oliver was of those who must prevail, a man born to make the world his oyster His anxieties were all for Lionel, whoht vouchsafed a man in his last hours Hence his piteous recommendation of him to Oliver, and Oliver's ready proster

All this was in Lionel's led with that hideous insistent thought that if things should go ill with his brother at Arwenack, there would be great profit to his he now enjoyed upon another's bounty he would then enjoy in his own right A devil seemed to mock hirief would not be long-lived Then in revolt against that voice of an egoism so loathsome that in his better ht hi affection; he pondered all the loving care and kindness that through these years past Oliver had ever showered upon him; and he cursed the rottenness of a hts as those which he had been entertaining

So wrought upon was he by the welter of his emotions, by that fierce strife between his conscience and his egotism, that he came abruptly to his feet, a cry upon his lips

”Vade retro, Sathanas!”

Old Nicholas, looking up abruptly, saw the lad's face, waxen, his brow bedeith sweat