"Surely not--he had no reason."
"You forget," observed Eustace sardonically, "I told you the boy inherited his mother's money, that was, no doubt, the reason, for Mostyn came back to Europe alone, claimed the money, and after obtaining it with some difficulty, soon squandered it on his own vicious pleasures. Then, as a reward for such conduct, his elder brother died without issue, and Mr. Gabriel Mostyn, blackguard, Bohemian and suspected murderer, came in for the family estates."
"The wicked flourish like a green bay tree," observed Angus, remembering the worthy Mactab's biblical readings in a hazy kind of way, and misquoting Scripture.
"The wicked man didn't flourish in this case," retorted Eustace, promptly. "Nemesis was on his track although he little knew it. He took his daughter back with him to England, duly came into possession of the estate, and tried to white-wash his character with society. His reputation, however, was too unsavoury for anyone to have anything to do with him, so in a rage he returned to his old ways and outdid in infamy all his previous life. No one was cruel enough to enlighten his daughter, whom he had left in seclusion at the family seat, and she remained quite ignorant of her father's conduct, which was a good thing for her peace of mind.
"For some years Mostyn, defying God and man, pursued his evil career, but at length Nature, generous in lending but cruel in exacting, demanded back all she had lent, and he was struck down in the full tide of his evil prosperity by a stroke of paralysis."
"Served him jolly well right," observed Otterburn heartily.
"So everybody thought. Well, he was taken down to his country house, and there for four terrible years Alizon Mostyn devoted herself to nursing him. What that poor girl suffered during those four years no one knows nor ever will know, for despite the blow which had fallen on him, Gabriel Mostyn was as wicked as ever, and I believe his curses and blasphemy against his punishment were something awful. No one ever came to see him but the doctors, although I was told a clergyman did attempt to make some enquiries after his soul, but retreated in dismay before the foul language used by the old reprobate. His daughter put up with all this, and in spite of the persuasions of her friends, who tried to take her away from that terrible bed-side, she attended him to the end with devoted affection. She saw him die, and from all accounts his death-bed was enough to have given her the horrors for the rest of her life, for only his lower extremities being paralysed, they said he tore the bedclothes to ribbons in his last paroxysm, cursing like a fiend the whole time."
"And did she stay through it all?"
"Yes! till the breath was out of his wicked old body. I believe his last breath was a curse, and just before he died it took two men to hold him down by main force in the bed."
"Great heavens! how awful," ejaculated Otterburn in a shocked tone; "what a terrible scene for that poor girl to witness--and afterwards?"