Suddenly he interrupted her by exclaiming, “Give me the deaths first.”

It had been a whim of his latterly to have this lugubrious list read to him every day.

Katherine had hardly commenced when she descried Mr. Newton’s well-known figure advancing from the garden gate.

“Ah, here is Mr. Newton!” she exclaimed.

“Ha! that is well,” cried her uncle, with shrill exultation.  “Now—­now all will go right.”

The next moment the lawyer was shown in, and having greeted them, proceeded to apologize for his unavoidable absence.  “Here I am, however, sir,” he concluded, “at your service.”

“Go—­leave us,” said Liddell, abruptly yet not unkindly, to Katherine; then, as she left the room, “Finish the deaths for me, will you, before we go to business.  She had just read the first two.  Read—­make haste!”

Somewhat surprised, Mr. Newton took up the paper and continued:  “On the 30th September, at Wimbledon, universally regretted, the Rev. James Johnson, formerly minister of “Little Bethel, Bermondsey.”  On October 1st, at her residence, Upper Clapton, Esther, relict of Captain Doubleday, late of the E. I. C. Service.  On the 2nd instant, at Bournemouth, Peter Fergusson, of Upper Baker Street, in the seventy-fifth year of his age.”

“Fergusson dead! and he is three years my junior!  Now it is all mine—­all!—­all!  I shall be able to settle it as I like.  I haven’t eaten and drunk in vain.  I’m strong, quite strong.  All the papers are there, in my bureau.  I’ll show them to you.  Aha!  I thought I’d outlive him!  I was determined to outlive him!”

With an uncanny laugh he struggled to his feet, and attempted to walk to his bedroom, his stick in one hand and the keys he had taken from his pocket in the other.  For a few steps he walked with a degree of strength that astonished Newton; then he gave a deep groan, staggered, and fell to the ground with a crash.

Newton rushed to raise him, which he did with some difficulty.  The noise brought the servant to his assistance.

“Go! fetch Dr. Bilhane,” said Mr. Newton, as soon as they had laid the helpless body on the bed.  “Though I doubt if he can do anything.  The old man is gone.”

CHAPTER IX.

“TEMPTATION.”

To Katherine, who was in her own room, the sound beneath came with a subdued force, and knowing Mr. Newton was with him, she thought it better to stay where she was, for it never struck her that Mr. Liddell had fallen.

When, therefore, Mrs. Knapp, with that eagerness to spread evil tidings peculiar to her class, rushed upstairs to announce breathlessly that she was going for the doctor, but that the poor old gentleman was quite dead, Katherine could not believe her.

She quickly descended to the parlor, where she found Mr. Newton standing by the fire, looking pale and anxious.

“Oh, Mr. Newton, he cannot be dead!” cried Katherine.  “He seemed stronger this morning, and he has fainted more than once.  Let me bathe his temples.”  She took a bottle of eau-de-Cologne from the sideboard as she spoke.