On a bed in one of the most elegantly furnished chambers in his princely dwelling, reposed Mr. Rand,—let me rather say reclined, for his quick, restless movements indicated anything but repose. His white hair clung disordered about his temples, his features were thin and careworn, and his whole aspect was that of a man whose life is ending in anxiety and disappointment.
Lewis sat by the bedside, coldly scrutinizing the wasted features, as if calculating how long life can retain its hold.
“Will he never die—never?” thus ran his thoughts. “It is strange with what tenacity he clings to life; but as long as he remains here, prostrated by sickness, I am tolerably safe. Still, it isn’t a bad plan, which I have in train through Sharp. Although the chances are a hundred to one in my favor, the bare possibility of miscarriage is sufficient to justify every precaution.”
“O that he might die at once!” he mentally resumed, looking impatiently at the wasted face. “Then alone will my doubts and anxieties be at an end. Then I shall care little how often I may meet my cousin Robert. He will have no further power to injure or thwart me. He cannot last long now. It is three days since he has been rational. He must die, and then——”
Lewis rose and paced the room with quick strides, while he indulged in dreams of the uses to which he would apply the rich inheritance, for which he had been plotting and scheming for so many years.
He was interrupted by a feeble voice from the bed.
Lewis turned quickly towards the bed, and the face of the cunning dissembler at once assumed the expression of profound sorrow and sympathy.
“My dear uncle,” he said, “I am rejoiced to find that you are once more yourself. How do you feel?”
“Weak, Lewis, very weak,” returned the sick man, speaking with difficulty. “I feel that my life is nearing its close.”
“Don’t say that, uncle,” said Lewis, with well dissembled emotion; “I cannot bear to part with you. Live for me, if not for yourself. If you should die, what is there left to me? Through so many years I have renounced all other ties, and devoted myself to you. You must not leave me now.”