“I think it only fair to tell you,” said Mr. Worthington, picking up his silk hat, “that in those letters I have merely anticipated a very little my intentions in the matter.  My son having proved his earnestness, I was about to consent to the marriage of my own accord.”

“G-goin’ to do it anyway—­was you?”

“I had so determined.”

“A-always thought you was high-minded,” said Jethro.

Mr. Worthington was on the point of giving a tart reply to this, but restrained himself.

“Then I may look upon the matter as settled?” he said.  “The Consolidation Bill is to become a law?”

“Yes,” said Jethro, “you’ll get your bill.”  Mr. Worthington had got his hand on the knob of the door when Jethro stopped him with a word.  He had no facial expressions, but he had an eye, as we have seen—­an eye that for the second time appeared terrible to his visitor.  “Isaac Worthington,” he said, “a-act up to it.  No trickery—­or look out—­look out.”

Then, the incident being closed so far as he was concerned, Jethro went back to his chair by the window, but it is to be recorded that Isaac Worthington did not answer him immediately.  Then he said:—­

“You seem to forget that you are talking to a gentleman.”

“That’s so,” answered Jethro, “so you be.”

He sat where he was long after the sky had whitened and the stars had changed from gold to silver and gone out, and the sunlight had begun to glance upon the green leaves of the park.  Perhaps he was thinking of the life he had lived, which was spent now:  of the men he had ruled, of the victories he had gained from that place which would know him no more.  He had won the last and the greatest of his victories there, compared to which the others had indeed been as vanities.  Perhaps he looked back over the highway of his life and thought of the woman whom he had loved, and wondered what it had been if she had trod it by his side.  Who will judge him?  He had been what he had been; and as the Era was, so was he.  Verily, one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh.

When Mr. Isaac Worthington arrived at Mr. Duncan’s house, where he was staying, at three o’clock in the morning, he saw to his surprise light from the library windows lying in bars across the lawn under the trees.  He found Mr. Duncan in that room with Somers, his son, who had just returned from a seaside place, and they were discussing a very grave event.  Miss Janet Duncan had that day eloped with a gentleman who—­to judge from the photograph Somers held—­was both handsome and romantic-looking.  He had long hair and burning eyes, and a title not to be then verified, and he owned a castle near some place on the peninsula of Italy not on the map.

CHAPTER XIX