"The most contemptible act of all was that where Mings and Packard followed Dick and his friends, when they had been ordered away, and attempted Dick's life——"
"I did not sanction that!" cried Sercomb desperately. His hopes were crumbling in his grasp like a rope of sand. "I did not tell Mings to tie Dick in the car and set the car toward the cliffs! Uncle! I——"
"Silence!" thundered Mr. Lawton. "I will have no false excuses. I know what you wanted! You wanted to get Dick out of the way. In your greed to get all of my property you shut your eyes to the heinousness of your conduct and struggled only to achieve your aim.
"Here, in this house, Ralph, I have watched barefaced duplicity and murderous resolve battling with frankness and fearlessness! I have seen you deliberately, and with three unscrupulous friends to help, play every card you could in an attempt to beat your own cousin. And I have felt shame that one of our line could act so like a cur.
"Had I known, in the beginning, just how far your greed would lead you, had I even remotely imagined all the dangers that would encompass Dick when he tried to follow out my last request, I would never have proceeded in the way I did.
"But now it is over. I have seen you both when you could not know I was near; I have watched your actions, weighed even your words, and I am able to judge between you."
A certain grimness of resolve came into the fine old face as Mr. Lawton went on.
"Ralph, you can expect from me—nothing. When I leave this place for good and all, and go to Denver—which will be in a few days—there will not be even a deed to La Vita Place to go to you. Considering my present mood, not a shilling of my money, sir, will go to you. To whom it does go, I will leave you to guess. Go back to your racing; and if, before I die, you have come nearer making a man of yourself, perhaps I will reconsider. You and your friends have an automobile in the barn. Take it, at once, and leave here."
A deep silence fell over the room. Tippoo stepped away from the door and tucked the revolver back into his sash. Mings, Packard and Finn bolted—glad, no doubt, to get away so easily. Sercomb started after them, but hesitated.
"Uncle," he began tremulously, "if you will——"