"Then it is high time that it did enter them. I said just now 'If you ever do become the master of Heron Dyke.'"
"Is that intended as a threat, sir?" asked Gilbert, a little fiercely.
"Never mind what it is intended as, but listen to me. I presume you are quite aware that it is in my power to leave Heron Dyke to anyone whom I may choose to nominate as my heir--to the greatest stranger in England if I like to do so?"
"I am of course aware that the property is not entailed," said the other, stiffly.
"And never has been entailed," said Mr. Denison with emphasis. "It has come down from heir male to heir male, for six hundred years. Providence having blessed me with no children of my own, by the unwritten law of the family the property would descend in due sequence to you. But that unwritten law is one which I have full power to abrogate if I think well to do so. Such being the case, ask yourself this question, Gilbert Denison: 'Judging from my past life for the last four years, am I a fit and proper person to become the representative of one of the oldest families in Norfolk? And would my uncle, taking into account all that he knows of me, be really justified in putting me into that position?'"
The elder man paused, the younger one hung his head.
"I think, sir, that the best thing you can do will be to let me go headlong to ruin after my own fashion," was all that he said.
"You will be good enough to remember that I have another nephew," resumed the dying man. "There is another Gilbert Denison as well as yourself."
"Aye! I'm not likely to forget him," said the other, savagely.
"So! You have met, have you? Well, from all I have heard of my brother Henry's son, he is a clever, industrious, and well-conducted young man--one not given, as some people are, to wine-bibbing and all kinds of riotous living. Had you been killed in a brawl, which seems a by no means unlikely end for you to come to, he would have stood as the next heir to Heron Dyke."