Hence his piteous recommendation of him to Oliver, and Oliver's ready promise to be father, mother, and brother to the youngster.
All this was in Lionel's mind as he sat musing there, and again he struggled with that hideous insistent thought that if things should go ill with his brother at Arwenack, there would be great profit to himself; that these things he now enjoyed upon another's bounty he would then enjoy in his own right.

A devil seemed to mock him with the whispered sneer that were Oliver to die his own grief would not be long-lived.

Then in revolt against that voice of an egoism so loathsome that in his better moments it inspired even himself with horror, he bethought him of Oliver's unvarying, unwavering affection; he pondered all the loving care and kindness that through these years past Oliver had ever showered upon him; and he cursed the rottenness of a mind that could even admit such thoughts as those which he had been entertaining.
So wrought upon was he by the welter of his emotions, by that fierce strife between his conscience and his egotism, that he came abruptly to his feet, a cry upon his lips.
"Vade retro, Sathanas!" Old Nicholas, looking up abruptly, saw the lad's face, waxen, his brow bedewed with sweat.
"Master Lionel! Master Lionel!" he cried, his small bright eyes concernedly scanning his young master's face.

"What be amiss ?" Lionel mopped his brow.

"Sir Oliver has gone to Arwenack upon a punitive business," said he.
"An' what be that, zur ?" quoth Nicholas.
"He has gone to punish Sir John for having maligned him." A grin spread upon the weather-beaten countenance of Nicholas.
"Be that so?
Marry, 'twere time.