As on the previous day, luncheon was provided for the baronet\'s visitors, and, as before, they partook of it without his presence.

Giovanna, in her clear simple way, related to her uncle all that had passed--all except that last speech of Sir Gilbert, which she left to be told later on.

The Captain rubbed his hands gleefully.

"All has gone well so far, very well indeed," he said; "and now that the worst is over--by which I mean now that Luigi has been introduced to the old man and accepted by him as his grandson, as, from what you tell me, seems undoubtedly to be the case--now that the most difficult part of our task has been successfully accomplished, I don\'t mind saying that I shall sleep more soundly to-night than I have for the last week or more."

"It seems to me that Sir Gilbert favoured me with a precious cool reception," said Luigi, in an aggrieved tone; "in fact it was enough to freeze one. And those eyes of his seemed to go right through me; I was never so nervous in my life. I wouldn\'t go through such a quarter of an hour again for a good deal."

"There will be no call for you to do so," replied the Captain. "As I said before, you have gone through the worst. You know now the kind of man he is, and must act accordingly. If you only knew how"--adding, to himself, "and were not so self-opinionated and conceited"--"you might lead Sir Gilbert anywhere with your little finger. In the case of such a man, you have only to fall in with his humours, or make believe to fall in with them, and you may do anything in reason with him."

"If I had but your head on my shoulders, uncle!" exclaimed Luigi, with a smile that had a spice of mockery in it.

"Or my brains in your numbskull," retorted the Captain. "Oh, the chance--the golden chance that is now yours! One can but hope that you will know how to make the best of it."

It seemed to Giovanna that the time had now come for making her uncle acquainted with what Sir Gilbert had said about him. The Captain pulled a wry face for a moment, and then broke into one of his short harsh laughs.

"What a cantankerous old shaver he is!" he exclaimed. "I was sure from the first that he had taken a dislike to me." Then laying a hand on his niece\'s arm, he added in a voice which had become suddenly grave: "It matters not a grain of salt in what light Sir Gilbert chooses to regard me, so long as you and Luigi--especially the boy--contrive to keep in his good graces. That is the only thing of any real consequence."

For the next few days Sir Gilbert felt thoroughly unsettled and out of sorts. His ordinary avocations seemed to have lost all interest for him; he was unable to fix his attention on anything outside the special current of his thoughts for more than a few minutes at a time. He shut himself up in his own room, a small apartment which opened out of the library, and even Everard Lisle was only admitted to the briefest possible audience each forenoon. His mental attitude at this time was a puzzle to himself. A wonderful thing had come to pass. One which, had an inkling of it been permitted him beforehand, he should have assured himself could not fail to fill his few remaining days with a happiness undreamt of, and almost too deep to find expression in words. A gift, the most precious of any he could have asked for (seeing that we cannot bring back our lost ones from the tomb), had been vouchsafed to him, yet, strange to say, he felt little or none of that elation which would have seemed the natural outcome of such a state of affairs. Why was this, and to what cause was it attributable? He tried to look forward to the presence of his newly-found grandson as to something that would crown his life with a blessing, and to mentally picture their daily life together in time to come, but he derived no pleasure from the process; neither did the future, now that he looked at it with fresh eyes, as it were, take to itself any added brightness from the fact that a son of his son would succeed him when the time should have come for him to pass into the Silent Land.

"Is it that my heart is dead?" he sadly asked himself, "or is it because I am so old and have gone through so much, that only the ghost of either joy or sorrow will ever keep me company again? Or is it," he went on, "because in this youth who has so suddenly intruded himself into my life I can discern nothing that serves to recall his father to memory, nor any likeness, however vague, to any of my pictured ancestors in the long gallery--who are his ancestors also--that I seem in no way drawn towards him? I cannot tell why it is so. I only know that it is."

In one respect, however, he derived a certain amount of mordant satisfaction from the knowledge that he would now be followed by an heir in the direct line of descent. His detested kinsman, Colonel Eustace Clare, who, he felt sure, never missed a day without hoping it would bring the tidings of his death, would now, at what might be termed the eleventh hour, be baulked of his chance of succession to the title, even as the cutting off of the entail in years gone by had deprived him of all prospect of ever succeeding to the estates.

Monday at noon br............