Part 4 (1/2)

But Sir John Killigrew did not die He hovered between this world and a better one for soan to recover

By October he was abroad again, gaunt and pale, reduced to half the bulk that had been his before, a mere shadow of a man

One of his first visits was to Godolphin Court He went to remonstrate with Rosamund upon her betrothal, and he did so at the request of her brother But his re in the force that she had looked for

The odd fact is that in his near approach to death, and with his earthly interest dwindling, Sir John had looked matters frankly in the face, and had been driven to the conclusion--a conclusion iot no more than he deserved He realized that he had acted unworthily, if unconscious at the time of the unworthiness of what he did; that the weapons hich he had fought Sir Oliver were not the weapons that become a Gentleman or in which there is credit to be won He perceived that he had permitted his old enmity for the house of Tressilian, swollen by a sense of injury lately suffered in the ment and to persuade him that Sir Oliver was all he had dubbed him

He realized that jealousy, too, had taken a hand in the ht hi up once more the Tressilian sway in those parts, which Ralph Tressilian had so outrageously diminished, so that he threatened to eclipse the irews of Arwenack

Nevertheless, in the hour of reaction he did not go so far as to admit that Sir Oliver Tressilian was a fit mate for Rosamund Godolphin She and her brother had been placed in his care by their late father, and he had nobly discharged his tutelage until such tie His affection for Rosa entirely paternal He went very near to worshi+pping her, and when all was said, when he had cleared his mind of all dishonest bias, he still found overmuch to dislike in Oliver Tressilian, and the notion of his beco Rosamund's husband was repellent

First of all there was that bad Tressilian blood--notoriously bad, and never rantly displayed than in the case of the late Ralph Tressilian It was impossible that Oliver should have escaped the taint of it; nor could Sir John perceive any signs that he had done so He displayed the traditional Tressilian turbulence He was passionate and brutal, and the pirate's trade to which he had now set his hand was of all trades the one for which he was by nature best equipped He was harsh and overbearing, impatient of correction and prone to tras underfoot Was this, he asked himself in all honesty, a mate for Rosamund? Could he entrust her happiness to the care of such a ain, he went to remonstrate with her as he accounted it his duty and as Master Peter had besought hi the bias that had been his he was careful to understate rather than to overstate his reasons

”But, Sir John,” she protested, ”if every man is to be condemned for the sins of his forbears, but few could escape conde your approval?”

”His father” began Sir John

”Tell me not of his father, but of himself,” she interrupted

He frowned i in that bower of hers above the river

”I was coht testily, for these interruptions which uments ”However, suffice it that many of his father's vicious qualities he has inherited, as we see in his ways of life; that he has not inherited others only the future can assure us”

”In other words,” she mocked hie to make quite sure that he has no such sins ashusband?”

”No, no,” he cried ”Good lack! what a perverseness is thine!”

”The perverseness is your own, Sir John I am but the runted ”Be it so, then,” he snapped ”We will deal with the qualities that already he displays” And Sir John enument of him--no more than what you think him”

”'Tis what all the world thinks him”

”But I shall not marry a man for what others think of him, but for what I think of hin him I discover no such qualities in Sir Oliver”

”'Tis that you should be spared such a discovery that I a you not to wed him”

”Yet unless I wed him I shall never make such a discovery; and until I make it I shall ever continue to love him and to desire to wed hiht, and came to stand beside hiht have put it about the neck of her father, as she had been in the habit of doing any day in these past ten years--and thereby e With her hand she rubbed his brow

”Why, here are wicked wrinkles of ill-humour,” she cried to him ”You are all undone, and by a woman's wit, and you do not like it”

”I a resolve not to see”

”You have naught to show ht?”