“I wish such or such a one was in heaven,” is a common expression, the meaning of which is of still more general acceptation.  The idea, in fact, has doubtless flitted across the minds of most of us, though few, let us hope, would help to realize it; for, notwithstanding its agreeable form, it is not a benevolent aspiration.  The reception of the individual in question into the realms of bliss has less interest with us than his removal from the earth’s surface, and, consequently, from our path upon it.  We may be very civil toward this person, and we often are; but we seldom desire him for a son-in-law.  John Trevethick did not.  But still less did he desire his open enmity; the longer, at all events, the declaration of war could be deferred the better.

“Come,” urged Richard; “I am only demanding the redemption of your promise—­one,” added he, precipitately, “that it lies in your own power to redeem.”

“The conditions, Mr. Yorke, have not yet been fulfilled,” said Trevethick, pointing to the check.  “I must see that money in bank-notes.”

He had not the least doubt of the genuineness of the document; but his objection would at least give him the respite of another day or two, and a respite seemed almost a reprieve.

“As you will,” answered Richard, with a faint smile.  “It is a matter of perfect indifference to me, and only costs me a journey to Plymouth.  If you will be so good as to let me have some vehicle to take me as far as Turlock, I will pack my carpet-bag and start at once.”

The landlord nodded, and withdrew without a word.

Left to himself, the smile faded from Richard’s face, and was succeeded by a look of the utmost dejection and disappointment.  All had been going so well up to that very last moment, and now all remained to be done, just as though nothing had been done at all.  The dangerous path that he had marked out for himself had to be trodden from first to last, at the very moment when he had seemed to have reached his journey’s end by a safe short-cut.  He knew that it was the smallest grain of suspicion, if not the mere desire to procrastinate, that had turned the scale in Trevethick’s mind, and imposed this task upon him.  The genuineness of the check had been almost taken for granted—­entire success had been missed, as it were, by a hair’s-breadth.  And now he was as far from it as ever.  Had he been but a little more earnest, or a little more careless in his own manner, all might have been well.  The obstacle that intervened between him and his desire still stood there, though only by an accident, as though, after he had fairly blown it into the air, it had resettled itself precisely in the same spot.