"If my uncle chooses to make an idiot of himself, that is no
reason why I should watch the evidence of his folly!"
"But there is another reason," answered Victor, with a sinister look in
his glittering black eyes. "Look at the picture while you may,
Reginald, for you will not have the chance of seeing it very often."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that the day is near at hand when Lady Eversleigh will fall
from her high estate. I mean that an elevation as sudden as hers is
often the forerunner of a sudden disgrace. The hour will come when Sir
Oswald will mourn his fatal marriage as the one irrevocable mistake of
his life; and when, in his despair, he will restore you, the disgraced
nephew, to your place, as his acknowledged heir; because you will at
least seem to him more worthy than his disgraced wife."
"And who is to bring this about?" asked Reginald, gazing at his friend
in complete bewilderment.
"I am," answered the surgeon; "but before I do so I must have some
understanding as to the price of my services. If the cat who pulled the
chestnuts out of the fire for the benefit of the monkey had made an
agreement beforehand as to how much of the plunder he was to receive
for his pains, the name of the animal would not have become a bye-word
with posterity. When I have worked to win your fortune, I must have my
reward, my dear Reginald.
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