WYLDER'S HAJVD.
811
posed for an instant more than I say. I could not ima-
gine — I am amazed you have so taken it."
"But you think I exercise some control or coercion
over my cousin, Mr. Mark Wylder. He's not a man, I
can tell you, wherever he' is, to be bullied, no more than
I am. I don't correspond with him. I have nothing to
do with him or his affairs: I wash my hands of him.
Captain Lake turned and walked quickly to the door,
but came back as suddenly.
"Shake hands, sir. We'll forget it. I accept what
you say; but don't talk that way to me again. I can't
imagine what the devil put such stuff in your head. I
don't care two pence. No one's to blame but Wylder
himself. I say I don't care a farthing. Upon my honor,
I quite see — I now acquit you. You could not mean
what you seemed to say; and I can't understand how a
sensible man like you, knowing Mark Wylder, and know-
ing me, sir, could use such — such ambiguous language.
I have no more influence with him, and can no more af-
fect his doings, or what you call his fate — and, to say
the truth, care about them no more than the child unborn.
He's his own master, of course. What the devil can
you've been dreaming of. I don't even get a letter from
him. He's nothing to me."
"You have misunderstood me; but that's over, sir. I
may have spoken with warmth, fearing that you might be
acting under some cruel misapprehension — that's all;
and you don't think worse of me. I'm very sure, Captain
Lake, for a little indiscreet zeal on behalf of a gentleman
who has treated me with such unlimited confidence as Mr.
Wylder. I'd do the same for you, sir; it's my charac-
ter."
The two gentlemen, you perceive, though still agitat-
ed, were becoming reasonable, and more or less compli-
mentary and conciliatory; and the masks which an elec-