The tone was impatient and ironical.
“But I am here for reconciliation, you know. They have been like strangers so long—never holding any communication with each other—and on his dying bed my father enjoined me to go to him and tell him how it all came about—how Geoffrey Haywood produced, by his lies and misrepresentations, an estrangement between two brothers that had always been so fond of each other. They were both passionate, and neither would seek explanations. Haywood was cool and calculating, and knew how to approach both of them.”
“And Haywood now lives in Dalton?”
“Yes; he still keeps on the right side of Colonel Conrad, and, I suspect, owes all his prosperity to his influence and aid.”
“When did your father discover that Haywood had been the means of the feud?”
“Nearly a year ago. His health was at that time poor, and he was unable to leave Europe, where he was traveling. He wrote to his brother, but the letter came back unopened. My father never grew better. He thought that, if I could see my uncle and lay the case before him, he might go down to his grave without the old hate rankling in his heart.”
The youth grew excited, and paced up and down the deck. Then he continued:
“I am to see this savage monster—this irate beast, as I have learned to regard him—and run the risk of hearing the memory of my father reviled, and his name insulted. It seems as if I could not bear it. His living face is yet too fresh in my memory. But the mission is intrusted to me, and I must fulfill it. I will tell him the facts, and my duty will have been done.”
Leonard Lester looked upon his cousin as he spoke, and smiled a pitying smile.
“It is rather tough,” he said, “to be obliged to get down on your knees to such an individual as I imagine your, or, rather, our uncle, to be—for I suppose he must be my uncle, since you and I are cousins, although I have never seen him. But I believe I am to accompany you, and if he lets off too much steam, I will let off some, too. I can do it, when there’s occasion.”