Something like a smile flitted over Sir Vincent's lips. He pointed to a desk that stood on a side-table.
"When I am gone, Roland, you can open that: there's a little loose cash in it. It will be enough to repay Greatorex and redeem your clothes."
"But I'd not like to take it, Vincent, thank you. I'd not, indeed."
"Why, man! it will be your own then."
"Oh, well--I never!" cried Roland softly: quite unable to realize his fast-approaching position.
"The danger to some people might lie in being thus suddenly raised from poverty to affluence," remarked Sir Vincent. "It has shipwrecked many a one."
"Don't fear for me, or for the estate either, Vincent. Had this happened some seven or eight years ago, when I was a lazy, conceited, ignorant young fool, nearly as stuck-up as Gerald, I can't say how it might have been. But I went to Port Natal, you know; and I gained my life's lesson there. Hamish Channing has left me guardian to Nelly. I can guess why he did it, too--that the world may see he thinks me worthy to be trusted at last. He had always the most delicately generous heart in Christendom."
"Hamish and I!" murmured Sir Vincent, in self-communing, "on the wing nearly together."
Yes, it was so. And Roland, with all his lamentation, could not alter the fiat.
"What was the lesson you learnt at Port Natal?"