Uncle David was a little fiery, and answered, holding his head high,--
"What I have to say is short and clear. I don't care twopence about your affairs, or your conduct, but I do very much care about my niece's happiness; and if you any longer decline to take the answer she has given you, and continue to cause her the slightest trouble, I'll make it a personal matter with you. Good-_night_!" he added, with an inflamed visage, and a stamp on the floor, thundering his valediction. And forth he went to pay his brief visit to his brother--not caring twopence, as he said, what Lord Wynderbroke thought of him.
Sir Reginald had got into his dressing-gown. He was not now in any pain to speak of, and expressed great surprise at the sudden appearance of his brother.
"Nothing, thanks," answered David. "I came to beg a favour."
"Oh! did you? You find me very poorly," said the baronet, in a tone that seemed to imply, "You might easily kill me, by imposing the least trouble just now."
"You'll be all the better, Reginald, for this little attack; it is so comfortably established in your foot."
"Comfortably! I wish you felt it," said Sir Reginald, sharply; "and it's confoundedly late. Why didn't you come to dinner?"
"You forgot, I think, to ask me," said he.
"Well, well, you know there is always a chair and a glass for you; but won't it do to talk about any cursed thing you wish to-morrow? I--I never, by any chance, hear anything agreeable. I have been tortured out of my wits and senses all day long by a tissue of pig-headed, indescribable frenzy. I vow to Heaven there's a conspiracy to drive me into a mad-house, or into my grave; and I declare to my Maker, I wish the first time I'm asleep, some fellow would come in and blow my brains out on the pillow."
"I don't know an easier death," said David; and his brother, who meant it to be terrific, did not pretend to hear him. "I have only a word to say," he continued, "a request you have never refused to other friends, and, in fact, dear Reginald, I ventured to take it for granted you would not refuse me; so I have taken Alice into town, to make me a little visit of a day or two."
"You haven't taken Alice--you don't mean--she's not gone?" exclaimed the baronet, sitting up with a sudden perpendicularity, and staring at his brother as if his eyes were about to leap from their sockets.