'The words I speak are not my own,' said Mr. Kippilaw, deprecatingly.
'Return to Craigengowan, and tell my father that I reject his bribe to insult my wife—for a bribe it is—with the scorn it merits. Not a penny of his money will I accept while my sword and pay, or life itself, are left me. Tell Lord and Lady Fettercairn that I view myself as their son no more. As they discard me, so do I discard them; and even their very name I shall not keep—remember that!'
'Dear me—dear me, all this is very sad!'
'They have thrust me from them as if I had been guilty of a crime——'
'Captain Melfort!'
'A crime I say—yet a day may come when they will repent it; and from this hour I swear——'
'Not in anger,' interrupted Mr. Kippilaw, entreatingly; 'take no hasty vow in your present temper.'
'I swear that to them and theirs I shall be—from this hour—as one in the grave!'
'But,' urged the lawyer, 'but suppose—which God forbid—that aught happened to your elder brother, Mr. Cosmo Melfort?'
'I wish Cosmo well; but I care not for my interest in the title—it may become dormant, extinct, for aught that I care. Neither I nor any of mine shall ever claim it, nor shall I again set foot in Craigengowan, or on the lands around it—no, never again, never again!'