“Your lordship’s uncle, the late earl, is dead, my lord,” quietly replied the rector.
“Dead!”
“Yes.”
“Dead! But there is Stoors.”
“He died before his father. But read your letter, my lord,” said the rector, purposely ringing the changes on the title that he would have too much good taste to bestow on the heir of an earldom under ordinary circumstances, but on this impenitent sinner, on this unpunished felon, on this dying peer, he lavished the honor with unction in the very bitterness of irony.
“Read your letter, my lord.”
“I cannot! Oh, this is too terrible!” groaned the dying earl, covering his face with his hands.
Did he mean, or did the rector for one moment believe that he meant, the sudden death of his relatives, so near together, was too terrible?
No, indeed. The man meant, and the rector knew that he meant, to receive this rich and august inheritance just at the hour of death was indeed “too terrible”—was insupportable.
Poor wretch! he burst into tears and sobbed aloud, dropping back on his pillow and turning his face to the wall.