"Well, then," he said, between his white, set teeth, "since you have determined to take this stand against me, it will not be agreeable for us to meet as heretofore, and I feel compelled to ask you to vacate these premises at your earliest convenience."
"Very well! I shall, of course, immediately comply with your request. A few hours will suffice me to make the move you suggest," frigidly responded Gerald Goddard; but he had grown ghastly white with wounded pride and anger at being thus ignominiously turned out of the house where for so many years he had reigned supreme.
Emil Correlli bowed as he concluded, and left the room without a word in reply.
As the door closed after him Mr. Goddard sank back in his chair with a heavy sigh, as he realized fully, for the first time, how entirely alone in the world he was, and what a desolate future lay before him, shorn, as he was, of home and friends and all the wealth which for so long had paved a shining way for him through the world.
His head sank heavily upon his breast, and he sat thus for several minutes absorbed in painful reflections.
He was finally aroused by the shutting of the street door, when, looking up, he saw the new master of the house pass the window, and he knew that henceforth he would be his bitter enemy.
He glanced wistfully around the beautiful room—the dearest in the house to him; at the elegant cases of valuable books, every one of which he himself had chosen and caused to be uniformly bound; at the choice paintings in their costly frames upon the walls, and many of which had been painted by his own hands; at the numerous pieces of statuary and rare curios which he knew would never assume their familiar aspect in any other place.
How could he ever make up his mind to dismantle that home-like spot and bury his treasures in a close and gloomy storage warehouse?
"Homeless, penniless, and alone?" he murmured, crushing back into his breast a sob that arose to his throat.
Then suddenly his glance fell upon the table beside him and rested upon the letter that Mr. Clayton had given to him, and which, in the exciting occurrences of the last hour, he had entirely forgotten.