"Remember, Gulian," he whispered as he passed the kneeling boy: "to-morrow I will see you."
Gulian, still on his knees in the center of the apartment, prayed God to be merciful to the dead,—to the dead son, whose corpse lay in the room above, and to the dead father, whose body was stretched before his eyes.
Tarleton paused for a moment on the threshold, with his hand upon the knob of the door—
"If Cornelius Berman were alive, he would inherit this immense estate!" muttered the Colonel. "As it is, here is a palace with two dead bodies in it, and no heir to inherit the wealth of the corpse which only half an hour ago was the owner of half a million dollars. But it is no time to meditate. There's work for me at the Temple."
Turning from that stately mansion, in which father and son lay dead, we will follow the steps of Rev. Herman Barnhurst.
[CHAPTER XIII.]
THE REVEREND VOLUPTUARIES.
As the Rev. Herman Barnhurst passed from the hall-door of the palace of the merchant prince, and descended the marble steps, his thoughts were by no means of a pleasant character. The image of Alice, for the moment forgotten, the thoughts of Herman were occupied with the scene which he had just witnessed,—the hopeless death-bed of the merchant prince.
"The fool!" muttered Herman, drawing his cloak around him, and pulling his hat over his brows, "The miserable fool! To die without making a will, when he has no heirs and the church has done so much for him. Why (in his own phrase) it has been capital to him, in the way of reputation; he has grown rich by that reputation; and now he dies, leaving the church and her ministers,—not a single copper, not a single copper."