“Malcolm, I have in my time known many fools, but if you will permit an old man, who loves you dearly, to make a plain statement of his conviction—­”

“Certainly,” I interrupted.

“It would be a great relief to me,” he continued, “to say that I believe you to be the greatest fool the good God ever permitted to live.”

“I am sure, Sir George, that your condescending flattery is very pleasing,” I said.

Sir George, unmindful of my remark, continued, “Your disease is not usually a deadly malady, as a look about you will easily show; but, Malcolm, if you were one whit more of a fool, you certainly would perish.”

I was not offended, for I knew that my cousin meant no offence.

“Then, Sir George, if the time ever comes when I wish to commit suicide, I have always at hand an easy, painless mode of death.  I shall become only a little more of a fool.”  I laughingly said, “I will do my utmost to absorb a little wisdom now and then as a preventive.”

“Never a bit of wisdom will you ever absorb.  A man who would refuse a girl whose wealth and beauty are as great as Dorothy’s, is past all hope.  I often awaken in the dark corners of the night when a man’s troubles stalk about his bed like livid demons; and when I think that all of this evil which has come up between Dorothy and me, and all of this cursed estrangement which is eating out my heart could have been averted if you had consented to marry her, I cannot but feel—­”

“But, Sir George,” I interrupted, “it was Dorothy, not I, who refused.  She could never have been brought to marry me.”

“Don’t tell me, Malcolm; don’t tell me,” cried the old man, angrily.  Drink had made Sir George sullen and violent.  It made me happy at first; but with liquor in excess there always came to me a sort of frenzy.

“Don’t tell me,” continued Sir George.  “There never lived a Vernon who couldn’t win a woman if he would try.  But put all that aside.  She would have obeyed me.  I would have forced her to marry you, and she would have thanked me afterward.”

“You could never have forced her to marry me,” I replied.

“But that I could and that I would have done,” said Sir George.  “The like is done every day.  Girls in these modern times are all perverse, but they are made to yield.  Take the cases of Sir Thomas Mobley, Sir Grant Rhodas, and William Kimm.  Their daughters all refused to marry the men chosen for them, but the wenches were made to yield.  If I had a daughter who refused to obey me, I would break her; I would break her.  Yes, by God, I would break her if I had to kill her,” and the old man brought his clenched hand down upon the oak table with a crash.  His eyes glared frightfully, and his face bore a forbidding expression which boded no good for Dorothy.

“She will make trouble in this matter,” Sir George continued, tapping the parchment with his middle finger.