"You cannot mean this, sir?" murmured Reginald Eversleigh.
There was a terrible fear at his heart—an inward conviction that his uncle was in earnest.
"My solicitors will furnish you with all particulars of the deed I spoke of," said Sir Oswald, without noticing his nephew's appealing tones. "That deed will secure to you two hundred a year. You have a soldier's career before you, and you are young enough to redeem the past—at any rate, in the eyes of the world, if not before the sight of heaven. If you find your regiment too expensive for your altered means, I would recommend you to exchange into the line. And now, Mr. Eversleigh, I wish you good morning."
"But, Sir Oswald—uncle—my dear uncle—you cannot surely cast me off thus coldly—you—"
The baronet rang the bell.
"The door—for Mr. Eversleigh," he said to the servant who answered his summons.
The young man rose, looking at his kinsman with an incredulous gaze. He could not believe that all his hopes were utterly ruined; that he was, indeed, cast off with a pittance which to him seemed positively despicable.
But there was no hope to be derived from Sir Oswald's face. A mask of stone could not have been more inflexible.
"Good morning, sir," said Reginald, in accents that were tremulous with suppressed rage.
He could say no more, for the servant was in attendance, and he could not humiliate himself before the man who had been wont to respect him as Sir Oswald Eversleigh's heir. He took up his hat and cane, bowed to the baronet, and left the room.