"Words; empty words," he fumed. "If it were a thing to do, now--"

"You need but name the thing and I will do it willingly."

Instead of naming it he shot a question at me, driving it home with
certain random thrustings of the shifty eyes.

"Who is your next of kin, Captain Ireton?"

"Septimus, of the same name, master of Iretondene, on the James River,
and a major in the Virginia line," I answered, wondering how my cousin
once removed should figure in the present coil. But Gilbert Stair's next
question dispelled the mystery.

"If you should die intestate, this Septimus would be your heir?"

"As next of kin, I should suppose he would. But I have nothing to
devise."

"True; and yet"--he paused again as if the wording of it were not easy.

"Be free to speak your mind, Mr. Stair," said I.

"'Tis this," he cried, gathering himself as with an effort. "You've
claimed my daughter as your wife before them all, and when you die
to-morrow morning you'll leave her neither wife nor maid. I think--I
think you'd best make that lie of yours the truth."

If one of his thin hands that clutched the chair arms had pressed a
secret spring and loosed a trap to send me gasping down an oubliette, I