"Yes; I am prepared to tell you all. Come to the hotel where I am staying, and after you have heard me we will concert together plans for reinstating you."
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE MYSTERY OF ROBERT RUDD IS SOLVED.
Hugo Richmond was in good spirits. All seemed working in his favor. He had got rid of Robert, the rightful heir, and escaped paying Fitzgerald the money he had agreed to pay him. Now his uncle, whose feeble hold on life had so long kept him from the coveted inheritance, seemed getting weaker and weaker every day. He was not positively sick, but he was sad and despondent; his appetite had failed, and he was more thin and shadowy than ever.
The wicked nephew could hardly conceal his exultation as he looked on the feeble old man, and calculated how few weeks he probably had to live.
"Yes," he said to himself, "Chestnutwood will soon be mine. And then—then I will take care to be repaid for the slavery of the last eight years."
Old Mr. Richmond could not read the nephew's heart, nor did he suspect his baseness. He thought him sincerely devoted to his interests.
"A gentleman to see you, sir," announced the servant, interrupting one of Hugo's day dreams.