“You don’t look of a very revengeful disposition, neither,” returned the chaplain, critically.

“I have never experienced the feeling of revenge,” answered the young man, frankly; “but I know what it is to feel wronged, and I think it is lucky that it is the law, and not an individual, that has done me the mischief—­one can’t have a vendetta against the law, you know.  But, if it were a man, ay, though he were my own flesh and blood, he should pay for it—­yes, sevenfold.  I would not put up with injustice from any human being; and where I could, if the law would not help me, I would right myself with the strong hand.”

It was curious to see the effect which this objectless passion wrought upon the young man’s face, and even figure.  His lithe limbs seemed to grow rigid; his right hand was clenched convulsively; his handsome Spanish countenance was lit up with a sort of dusky glow.

“My dear young friend,” said the chaplain, quietly, “my profession, perhaps, ought to suggest to me some serious arguments against the disposition which you so unmistakably evince; but I will confine myself to saying that such a temper as yours is not to be kept for nothing.  It is only men in your father’s position who can indulge themselves in such a luxury, I do assure you.  You’ll come to grief with it some day.”

Yorke laughed, good-humoredly.  “What must be, will be.  Let us hope there will be no occasion for the display of my fire-works.  I suppose, what with his two packs of hounds and the rest of it, even my father will be brought to behave himself demurely, sooner or later.”

“I should like to see Carew demure,” said the chaplain, smiling; “although not reduced to that state by the extremities of poverty.  Yes, as you say,” he added, in a graver tone, “the pace at which he has been going these twenty years has begun to tell on his fortune.  But it is not the dogs that will ruin him (as they ruined poor Ryll, with his few thousands), nor yet his hunters.  It is his race-horses on the Downs yonder that will bring him to his piece of bread.”

“I suppose so,” said Yorke, sighing, not so much on Carew’s account as on his own; “he backs a horse because it is his own.  That is his confounded egotism.”

“Your tie of relationship, Mr. Yorke, does not, I perceive, make you blind to your father’s foibles.”

“Why should it?” rejoined the young man, passionately.  “Am I to feel grateful to him for begetting me?  What has he done to make me feel that I owe him aught?  Do you suppose I thank him for being admitted here, unacknowledged, uninvited in my own proper person?  For being permitted to take my fill at the common trough along with his drunken swine?”

“Nay, my friend,” interposed the chaplain, coldly; “the food and wine are of the best; and we should never scoff at good victual.  If you have so proud a stomach, why are you here?  It embarrasses you to answer the question.  Let me, then, shape the reply.  ’I have a sense of my own dignity,’ you would say, ’far keener than that of my father’s flatterers and favorites; but, on the other hand, I humiliate myself for a much greater stake.’”