At this moment there was a ring below stairs, then a knock at the chamber door, and in came the nurse. The doctor was waiting.
"You had better go now, my boy," said Mr. Denison, pressing Gilbert's hand affectionately. "At ten tomorrow I shall expect to see you again."
Gilbert Denison stood up and took the dying man's fingers within his strong grasp; he gazed with grave, resolute eyes into the dying man's face.
"One moment, sir. As I said before--you do not know me. You have seen one side of me--the weak side--and that is all. If you think that, when I make up my mind to do so, I cannot throw off the trammels of my present life, almost as easily as I cast aside an old coat, then, sir, you are quite and entirely mistaken. That I have been weak and foolish I fully admit, but it is just possible, sir, that, young as I am, I may have had trials and temptations of which you know nothing. How many men before me have striven to find in reckless dissipation a Lethe for their troubles? Not that I wish to excuse myself: far from it. I only wish you to understand and believe, uncle, that there is a side to my character of which as yet you know nothing."
"I am willing to believe it, Gilbert," was the answering murmur: and once more the young man pressed Mr. Denison's hand to his lips.
When Gilbert Denison called in Bloomsbury Square the following morning he found his uncle much weaker and more exhausted. Mr. Denison was evidently sinking fast. Gilbert stayed with him till the end. A little while before that end came, he drew his nephew down to him and spoke in a whisper:
"Never forget the motto of your family, my boy: 'What I have, I hold.'"
And before the sun rose again, Gilbert Denison the younger was master of Heron Dyke, with an income of six thousand a year.