“Good-night,” he said; “I know I have an advocate in you. Gentlemen, good-evening. I will call at your office in the morning, Mr Hampton.”
He left the room, and, as soon as the gate was heard to clang, Gertrude signed to Mrs Hampton and they left the room, for Saul’s manner betokened another storm.
Too truly, for the next minute it broke out with uncontrolled violence—words he did not mean to utter pouring from his lips.
“It is a lie! A fraud! A base piece of cozening?” he cried. “The man is an impostor, who has come forward to rob me of my rights.”
“Your rights, Mr Saul,” said the lawyer slowly; “what are they?”
“I mean my rights as next-of-kin. Where is my cousin George? He must be found: he shall be found!”
“Stop, sir!” cried Doctor Lawrence, in a stern voice, as he caught the speaker by the shoulder. “As a physician, I know your condition better than you know it yourself. I have given you fair warning of the danger of giving way to anger like this. You will not heed my remonstrances, so now I insist upon your being calm.”
“Calm! How can a man be calm?”
“When he is goading himself on to an apoplectic fit? I don’t know, sir; but you have to be calm, or I must give you some drug that will make you.”
“No, no,” cried the young man, with a gesture full of horror.