CHAPTER XVI.
"VENGEANCE IS MINE."
When Hinton at last left him, Mr. Harman sat on for a long time by his study fire. The fire burnt low but he did not replenish it, neither did he touch the cold coffee which still remained on his table. After an hour or so of musings, during which the old face seemed each moment to grow more sad and careworn, he stretched out his hand to ring his bell.
Almost instantly was the summons answered—a tall footman stood before him.
"Dennis, has Mr. Jasper left?"
"Yes, sir. He said he was going to his club. I can have him fetched, sir."
"Do not do so. After Mr. Hinton leaves, ask Miss Harman to come here."
The footman answered softly in the affirmative and withdrew, and Mr. Harman still sat on alone. He had enough to think about. For the first time to-day death had come and stared him in the face; very close indeed his own death was looking at him. He was a brave man, but the sight of the cold, grim thing, brought so close, so inevitably near, was scarcely to be endured with equanimity. After a time, rising from his seat, he went to a bookcase and took down, not a treatise on medicine or philosophy, but an old Bible.
"Dying men are said to find comfort here," he said faintly to himself. He put one of the candles on the table and opened the book. It was an old Bible, but John Harman was not very well acquainted with its contents.
"They tell me there is much comfort here," he said to himself. He turned the old and yellow leaves.