“Master of Ravenswood,” said Sir William Ashton, with some embarrassment, “I hope you understand the Christian law too well to suffer the sun to set upon your anger.”

The Master blushed and replied, “He had no occasion that evening to exercise the duty enjoined upon him by his Christian faith.”

“I should have thought otherwise,” said his guest, “considering the various subjects of dispute and litigation which have unhappily occurred more frequently than was desirable or necessary betwixt the late honourable lord, your father, and myself.”

“I could wish, my lord,” said Ravenswood, agitated by suppressed emotion, “that reference to these circumstances should be made anywhere rather than under my father’s roof.”

“I should have felt the delicacy of this appeal at another time,” said Sir William Ashton, “but now I must proceed with what I mean to say.  I have suffered too much in my own mind, from the false delicacy which prevented my soliciting with earnestness, what indeed I frequently requested, a personal communing with your father:  much distress of mind to him and to me might have been prevented.”

“It is true,” said Ravenswood, after a moment’s reflection, “I have heard my father say your lordship had proposed a personal interview.”

“Proposed, my dear Master?  I did indeed propose it; but I ought to have begged, entreated, beseeched it.  I ought to have torn away the veil, which interested persons had stretched betwixt us, and shown myself as I was, willing to sacrifice a considerable part even of my legal rights, in order to conciliate feelings so natural as his must be allowed to have been.  Let me say for myself, my young friend, for so I will call you, that had your father and I spent the same time together which my good fortune has allowed me to-day to pass in your company, it is possible the land might yet have enjoyed one of the most respectable of its ancient nobility, and I should have been spared the pain of parting in enmity from a person whose general character I so much admired and honoured.”

He put his handkerchief to his eyes.  Ravenswood also was moved, but awaited in silence the progress of this extraordinary communication.

“It is necessary,” continued the Lord Keeper, “and proper that you should understand, that there have been many points betwixt us, in which, although I judged it proper that there should be an exact ascertainment of my legal rights by the decree of a court of justice, yet it was never my intention to press them beyond the verge of equity.”

“My lord,” said the Master of Ravenswood, “it is unnecessary to pursue this topic farther.  What the law will give you, or has given you, you enjoy—­or you shall enjoy; neither my father nor I myself would have received anything on the footing of favour.”

“Favour!  No, you misunderstand me,” resumed the Keeper; “or rather you are no lawyer.  A right may be good in law, and ascertained to be so, which yet a man of honour may not in every case care to avail himself of.”