"I don't like him."
"Nor I. But I must bid you good-night, my son. I am tired and need rest."
"I wanted to speak to you about Oliver."
"We will defer that till morning."
"Good-night, then!" and Roland left his father a prey to anxieties which kept him awake for hours.
CHAPTER V.
MR. KENYON'S RESOLVE.
M R. KENYON felt that a sword was impending over his head which might at any time fall and destroy him. Four years before he had married Mrs. Conrad, a wealthy widow, whose acquaintance he had made at a Saratoga boarding-house. Why Mrs. Conrad should have been willing to sacrifice her independence for such a man is one of the mysteries which I do not pretend to solve. I can only record the fact. Oliver was away at the time, or his influence—for he never fancied Mr. Kenyon—might have turned the scale against the marriage.Mr. Kenyon professed to be wealthy, but his new wife never was able to learn in what his property consisted or where it was located. Shortly after marriage he tried to get the management of his wife's property into hisown hands; but she was a cautious woman,—a trait she inherited from Scotch ancestry,—and, moreover, she was devotedly attached to her son Oliver. She came to know Mr. Kenyon better after she had assumed his name, and to distrust him more. Three months had not passed when she bitterly repented having accepted him; but she had taken a step which she could not retrace. She allowed Mr. Kenyon a liberal sum for his personal expenses, and gave a home to his son Roland, who was allowed every advantage which her own son enjoyed. Further than this she was not willing to go, and Mr. Kenyon was, in consequence, bitterly disappointed. He had supposed his wife to be of a more yielding temperament.
So matters went on for three years. Then Mr. Kenyon all at once fancied himself in very poor health, at any rate he so represented. He induced a physician to recommend travelling, and to urge the importance of his wife accompanying him. She fell into the trap, for it proved to be a trap. The boys were left at home, at a boarding school, and Mr. and Mrs. Kenyon set out on their travels. They sailed for Cuba, where they remained two months; then they embarked for Charleston. In the neighborhood of Charleston Mr. Kenyon was enabled at length to carry out his nefarious design. He made the acquaintance of Dr. Fox, an unprincipled keeper of a private insane asylum, and left Mrs. Kenyon in his charge, under the name of Mrs. Crandall, with the strictest orders that under no circumstances should she be permitted to leave the asylum.
Three months from the time of his departure he reappeared in Brentville, wearing deep mourning—a widower. According to his account, Mrs. Kenyon had been attacked by a malignant fever, and died in four days. He also produced a will, made by his wife, conveying to him absolutely her property, all and entire. The only reference to her son Oliver was couched in these terms: