On the morning of the funeral, six days later, Christian rose very early, and took coffee in his library shortly after seven. Then, lighting a cigarette, he resumed work upon several drawers full of papers, open on the big table, where it had been left off the previous evening. The details of the task seemed already familiar to him. He scanned one document after another with an informed eye, and put it in its proper pile without hesitation. He made notes suggested by the contents of each, on the pad before him, with a quill pen and corrected the vagaries of this unaccustomed implement, in the matter of blots and inadequate lines, with painstaking patience. There were steel nibs in abundance, and two gold stylographic pens, but he clung resolutely to the embarrassing feather.

After a time he rested from his labors, and rang the bell beside his desk; almost upon the instant Falkner appeared in the doorway.

“If Mr. Westland is up,” said Christian, “you may ask him to join me here.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” the smooth-voiced, soft-mannered man replied, and vanished.

The young duke rose, yawned slightly and moved to the window nearest him. It opened, upon examination, and he stepped out on a narrow balcony of stone which skirted the front of the square tower he had quitted. The outlook seemed to be to the northeast, for a patch of sunshine lay upon the outer edge of the balcony at the right. Breathing in delightedly the fresh Maymorning air, he gazed upon the bold prospect of hills receding in lifted terraces high against the remote sky-line. He had not seen just this view from Caermere before—and he said to himself that it was finer than all the others. Above each lateral stretch of purplish-gray granite, to the farthest distance, there ran a band of cool green foliage—the inexpressibly tender green of young birch trees; their thin, chalk-white stems were revealed in delicate tracery against indefinable sylvan shadows.

Through the early stillness, he could hear the faint murmur of the Devon, gurgling in the depths of the ravine between him and the nearest hill. “To-morrow,” he thought, “will begin the true life! All this will be my home—mine! mine! and before anybody is up in the morning I will be down where that river of black water runs, and fish in the deep pools for trout.”

Some one touched his elbow. He turned with a quick nod and smile to greet Dicky Westland. “I am up ages before you, you see,” he said genially. “It was barely daylight when I woke—and I suffered tortures trying to remain in bed even till six. Oh, this is wonderful out here!”

“Awfully jolly place, all round,” commented Dicky. He blinked to exorcise the spirit of sleep and gazed at the prospect with determined enthusiasm. “I haven’t looked about much, but I’ve found out one thing already. There’s a ghost in my room—and I think he must have been a professional pedestrian in life.”

“Splendid!” cried Christian, gaily. “Have you had coffee—or it is tea you people drink, isn’t it? Then shall we get to work? I want the papers out of the way before Emanuel comes. They will all be here between nine and ten. I wanted to send carriages to Craven Arms, but it seemed there were not horses enough, so hired traps are to be brought up from the station.”

“Do you know who are coming?”

“Lord Julius, and Emanuel and his wife; the captain and his wife and brother; Lord Chobham, and Lord Lingfield—I don’t know if any of their women will come—and Lady Cressage. Then there are some solicitors, and perhaps some old acquaintances of my grandfather’s. At all events, Welldon has ordered four carriages and a break. There is to be breakfast at ten, and I shall be glad when it is all over—when everything is over. Do you know?—I have never been to a funeral in my life—and I rather funk it.”

“Oh, they’re not so bad as you always think they’re going to be,” said the secretary, consolingly. “The main thing is the gloves. I never could understand it—but black gloves are invariably about two sizes smaller than ordinary colors. You want to look out for that. But I dare say your man is up to the trick—he looks a knowing party, does Falkner.”

“I fancy I shall give him back to Emanuel,” remarked Christian, thoughtfully.

“He is an excellent servant, but he reminds me too much of Duke Street. Did you notice the old butler yesterday afternoon?—he stood at the head of the steps to meet us—that is old Barlow. I have a great affection for him. I shall have him valet me, I think.”

“Isn’t he rather venerable for the job?” suggested the other. “And wouldn’t it be rather a come-down for a head butler? They’re awfully keen about their distinctions among themselves, you know.”

Christian smiled with placidity. “I think that the man whom I pick out to be nearest me will feel that he has the best place in the household. I shall be very much surprised indeed if that isn’t Barlow’s view. And of course he will have his subordinates. But now let us take Welldon’s statement for the last half of ’95, and the two halves of ’96. Then we can get to the mine. Unless I am greatly mistaken, that is most important. I find that the mining company’s lease falls in early next year. And won’t you ring the bell and have Welldon sent up when he comes?”

Upon mature reflection Christian decided not to descend to meet his guests at breakfast. When he had dismissed the estate agent, Welldon, after a prolonged and very comprehensive interview, he announced this decision to Westland. “You must go down and receive them in my place,” he said.

“I will say that you have a cold,” suggested Dicky.

“By no means,” returned Christian, promptly.

“It is not necessary to enter into details. You receive them—that is all. I have spoken with Barlow; he knows what to do with them in the matter of rooms and so on. I am breakfasting here. And afterward—say at eleven o’clock—I will see some of them here. There is an hour to spare then, before we go to the church. I am not clear about this—which ones to see first. There is that stupid reading of the will after we get back——”

“By George! do they do that still?” interrupted Dicky. “I know they did in Trollope and George Eliot—but I thought it had gone out.”

“It is kept up in old families,” replied Christian, simply. “In this case it is a pure formality, of course. There is no mystery whatever. The will was made in 1859, after the entail was broken, and merely bequeaths everything in general terms to the heir-at-law. My grandfather covenanted, at the same time, to Lord Julius to make no subsequent will save by his advice and consent—so that there can be no complications of any kind. I am thinking whether it would be better to see Lord Julius and Emanuel before the reading of this will or after. Really it makes no difference—perhaps it is better to get it over with. Yes—say to them that I beg they will come to me here at eleven. You might bring them up and then leave us together—or no, they know the way. Let them come up by themselves.”

Through the open window there came the grinding sound of wheels upon the gravel of the drive, around at the east front. At a gesture from the other, Dicky hurried away.

Left to himself, Christian wandered again to the casement, and regarded the spacious view with renewed interest. Falkner entered presently, bearing a large tray, and spread some covered dishes upon a cloth on the library table.

“How many carriages have come?” the master asked from his place at the window.

“Four, Your Grace—and a break with some wreaths and Lord Chobham’s man and a maid—I think it is Lady Cressage’s maid.”

“Who has come—outside the family?”

“Three gentlemen, Your Grace—one of them is Mr. Soman. Barlow thinks they are all solicitors.”

Christian mused briefly upon the presence of Lord Julius’s man of business. Since that first evening of his on English soil, at Brighton, he had not seen this Mr. Soman. He remembered nothing of him, indeed, save his green eyes. And now that he thought of it, even this was not a personal recollection. It was the remark of the girl on the boat, about his having green eyes, which stuck in his memory. He smiled, as he looked idly out on the hills.

The girl on the boat! Was it not strange that his mind should have applied to her this distant and chilling designation? Only a few days ago—it would not be a week till to-morrow—she had seemed to him the most important person in the world. A vision of his future had possessed him, in which she alone had a definite share. How remote it seemed—and how curious!

He recalled, quite impersonally, what he had heard in one way or another about her family. Her father was some sort of underling in the general post office—a clerk or accountant, or something of the kind. There was a son—of course, that would be the brother Cora had spoken of—and the ambition of the family had expended itself in sending this boy to a public school, and to the university. The family had made great sacrifices to do this—and apparently these had been wasted. He had the distinct impression of having been told that the son was a worthless fellow. How often that occurred in England—that everything was done for the son, and nothing at all for the daughters! Then in fairness he reflected that it was even worse in France. Yes, but somehow Frenchwomen had a talent for doing for themselves. They were cleverer than their brothers—more helpful, resourceful—in spite of the fact that the brothers had monopolized the advantages. Images of capable, managing Frenchwomen he had known rose before his mind’s eye; he saw them again accomplishing wonders of work, diligent, wise, sensible, understanding everything that was said or done. Yet, oddly enough, these very paragons of feminine capacity had a fatal unfeminine defect; they did not know how to bring up their sons. Upon that side they were incredibly weak and silly; it was impossible to prevent their making pampered fools of their boys.

Suddenly his vagrant fancies were concentrated upon the question of how Frances Bailey would bring up a boy—a son of her own. It was an absurd query to have raised itself in his mind—and he put it away from him with promptitude. There remained, however, a kind of mental protest lodged on her behalf among his thoughts. He perceived that in his ruminations he had done her an injustice. She was not inferior in capability or courage to any of the self-sufficient Frenchwomen he had been thinking of, and in the matter of intellectual attainments was she not immeasurably superior to them all? The translucent calm of her mind—penetrating, far-reaching, equable as the starlight—how queer that it should be coupled with such a bad temper! She always quarreled with him, and bullied him, when they were together. Even when she was exhibiting to him the sunniest aspects of her mood, there was always a latent defiance of him underneath, ready to spring forth at a word. He remembered how, at the close of their first meeting, she had refused to tell him her name. He saw now that this obstinacy of hers had annoyed him more than he had imagined. For an instant it assumed almost the character of a grievance—but then his attention fastened itself at random upon the remarkable fact that he had seen her only twice in his life. Upon reflection, this did seem very strange indeed. But it was the fact—and in the process of readjusting his impressions of the past six months to fit with it, the figure of her receded in his mind, grew less as she moved away under a canopy of dull yellowish-green, which vaguely identified itself with the trees on the Embankment. She dwindled thus till he thought of her again, with a dim impulse of insistence upon the phrase, as the girl on the boat. The transition to thoughts of other things gave his mind no sort of trouble.

He pondered some of these other things—formlessly and light-heartedly—while he stood at the library table, and picked morsels here and there from the dishes laid for him. His absence of appetite he referred tacitly to the warmth of the day, as it was sunnily developing itself outside. Here on this shaded side of the castle, it was cool enough, but there was the languor of spring in the air. He scrutinized this new library of his afresh. Until Barlow had opened it for him, shortly after his arrival yesterday, it could not have been used for years. Most of its appointments had a very ancient look; no doubt they must date back at least to the seventh Duke’s time. It was incredible that his grandfather, the eighth Duke, should have been inspired to furnish a library. There were many shelves of apparently very old books as well, but there was also a vast deal of later rubbish—stock and sporting annuals, veterinary treatises, county directories and the like—which he would lose no time in putting out. He saw already how delightful a room could be made of it. It had the crowning merit of being connected with the suite of apartments he had chosen for his own. From the door at the side, opposite the fine old fireplace, one entered the antechamber to his dressing-room. This gave to the library an intimate character, upon which he reflected with pleasure. Here he would come, secure from interruption, and spend among his books the choicest and most fruitful hours of his leisure. It was plain to him that henceforth he would do a great deal of reading, and perhaps—why not?—of writing too.

There was a rap upon the door, and then Falkner, opening it, announced Lord Julius and his son. They came in together, diffusing an impalpable effect of constraint. The elder man seemed in Christian’s eyes bigger than ever; his white beard spread over the broad chest like a vine run wild. Emanuel, who lapsed in the wake of his father, was unexpectedly small by comparison. The shadows, where the two stood, emphasized the angular peculiarities of his bald head. His thin face took an effect of sallow pallor from his black clothes. Already he had his black gloves in his hands.

Christian stepped forward to meet them—and was suddenly conscious of the necessity for an apology. “I did not come down,” he murmured, as he shook hands with a grave smile—“I am not quite master of myself yet. It is still strange to me. But come to the window, and let us sit down.”

They followed him, and took the chairs he pushed out for them. He perched himself on the corner of the big table, and lightly stroked the glazed boot of the foot which was not on the floor. “I am glad to hear that Kathleen has come,” he said to his cousin. “I hope she is very well.”

“Extremely so,” replied Emanuel. Then, upon reflection, he added, “We had hoped that you would come to us, on your way down from London.”

“There was so much to do in town,” explained Christian, hazily. “My grandfather’s lawyers came up at once from Shrewsbury, and it was necessary to see a good deal of them—and then there were the tailors and outfitters. It was all I could do to get away yesterday morning. And of course—by that time I was needed here.” He turned to the other. “And you are very well, Uncle Julius?”

“I am well,” said the elder man, with what Christian suspected for the instant to be significant brevity. The father and son had exchanged a look, as well, which seemed to have a meaning beyond his comprehension. But then he forgot these momentary doubts in the interest of the discovery that there were tears in his great-uncle’s eyes.

Lord Julius unaffectedly got out a handkerchief, and wiped them away. He looked up at the young man as through a mist. “I never dreamed that I should feel it so much,” he said, huskily. “I am amazed at myself—and then ashamed at my amazement—but Kit’s death has somehow put me about and upset me to a tremendous extent. There was thirteen years between us—but when you get to be an old man, that seems no more than as many weeks. And Emanuel”—he addressed his son with the solemnity befitting a revelation—“I am an old man.”

Emanuel frowned a little in his abstracted fashion. “You are less old than any other man of your years in England,” he protested.

Christian, listening, somehow found no conviction in these reassuring words. It dawned upon him suddenly that Lord Julius had in truth aged a great deal. The perception of this disarranged the speech he had in his mind.

“There are a thousand things to be talked over,” he began, with an eye upon Emanuel, “but I do not know if this is quite the opportune time. I wished to lose no time in seeing you both, of course—but you will not be hurrying away. No doubt there will be a better opportunity.”

“I don’t think it will be found that there is so very much to say,” remarked Emanuel. A gentle but persistent melancholy seemed to pervade his tone.

“There is the complication”—Christian began again, and hesitated. “That is to say—you know even better and more fully than I do, to what a great extent I am in your hands. And there the complication, as I said, arises. I have been working very hard on the figures—with the lawyers in London, and here since I arrived—but before we touch those at all, I ought to tell you frankly, Emanuel: I do not see my way to meeting the conditions which you suggested to me last autumn, when we met first.” Emanuel seemed in no wise perturbed by the announcement. His nervous face maintained its unmoved gravity. “It was never anything more than a pious hope that you would,” he commented. “I may add,” he went on, “that even this hope cannot be said to have survived your first visit. Otherwise, I should have tried to have you see London under different auspices—through different eyes.”

The calmness with which the decision he had regarded as so momentous met acceptance disconcerted Christian. He had mentally prepared for the defense of his hostile attitude toward the System—and, lo! not a syllable of challenge was forthcoming.

“But there remains, all the same, the principal difficulty,” he said, thinking hard upon his words. “It does not lessen my obligations to you as my chief creditors.” He looked from one to the other, as if in uncertainty as to which was the master mind. “You have both been very open with me. You have told me why it was that you devoted a large fortune to buying up the mortgages on the estate which is now mine—and to lending always more money upon it—until now the interest eats up the income like a visitation of locusts. But my knowledge of the motives does not help me. And you must not think, either,” his confidence was returning now, and with it a better control over his phrases—“that I am begging for help. I look the situation in the face, and I do not feel that I am afraid of it. I see already many ways in which I can make a better fight of it than my grandfather made.”

Lord Julius held up a hand. “Is there not a misconception there?” he asked, pleasantly enough. “A fight involves antagonists—and I intervened in poor Kit’s affairs as a protector, not as an assailant.”

Christian stood erect, and knitted his brows in puzzled thought upon both the manner and the matter of these words.

“But it is still the same,” he persisted. “You were his good friend—as I know you are mine—or hope very sincerely that you are—but none the less you were his overwhelmingly big creditor, as now you are mine. If one is greatly in debt, then one struggles to get out. It is in that sense that I meant the word ‘fight.’ And, to repeat, I see many ways of making progress. I find that Welldon is not exclusively my man. He is the agent of three other estates as well, because we could not pay him enough here for all of his services. That I will alter at once. I find that we have no mineral bailiff. The company at Coalbrook has paid such royalties as it pleased, without check of any sort. We have the right to examine their books, but it has never been exercised. Next week my secretary and Welldon go to Coalbrook. I find that the company’s lease of twenty-one years expires next February. Eh bien! It will be strange if I do not get ten thousand pounds hereafter, where less than four has come in hitherto. My lawyers already know of capitalists who desire to bid for the new lease—and the estimate of increase is theirs, not mine. But these are details. I mention them to you only to show you that I am not afraid. But anxious, I do not deny that I am. I have not been bred to these things—and I may easily make mistakes. It would take a great load off my mind if—if, in some measure, you would be my advisers as well as my creditors.”

“Why should you ever have doubted that?” asked Emanuel, in a tone of somber kindliness.

“Ah, but I do not mean advice about the management of the estate,” put in Christian, with an over-eager instinct of self-defense. “I do not shrink from taking that completely on my own shoulders. I would not trouble you with anything of that sort. But of larger matters——”

“There is one large matter,” interrupted Lord Julius, speaking with great deliberation, “which I find outweighing all others in my mind. It is not new to my mind—but to-day it pushes everything else aside. It is the thought of the family itself. I have told you this before—let me say it to you again. Everything that I have done—every penny that I have laid out—has been with this one end in view—the family. Yet this morning I have been thinking of it—and I am frightened. While poor old Kit lingered along, it was not so easy to grasp it, somehow—but his going off makes it glaring. There are too few of us. I am alone in my generation—and so is Emanuel in his—and so are you in yours, save for those rowdy simpletons Eddy and Gus. And beyond you, there is only that little girl baby of Cora Bayard’s! I want you to marry, Christian. I want to see sons of yours growing up here at Caermere—hearty, fine boys to carry the name of Torr along. That I am really in earnest about. By comparison with it, nothing else on earth matters—for us.”

“Oh, I shall marry,” Christian replied, in smiling seriousness. “Of course, that is the obvious thing to be done. And now”—he looked at his watch—“it is time for me to dress. It is arranged that you and Emanuel and Kathleen drive to the church in the carriage with me. It is not quite orthodox precedence, I know, but I could not bear to—to have it otherwise. And we will think no more about those other matters until tomorrow.”

“Other matters,” repeated Lord Julius, and exchanged a look with his son as they rose. “My dear Christian, there are no other matters.”

“No—not till to-morrow,” answered Christian, with a doubtful smile. “But then I am afraid there are a good many.”

Emanuel filled in the pause. “Mr. Soman has brought all the papers,” he said, with a flitting return to his lighter manner. “It is my father’s meaning that the mortgages are extinguished.”

Christian gazed from one to the other with a face full of stupefaction. His knees shook and sought to bend under him. Tremblingly he essayed to speak—and his lips would make no sound.

Lord Julius laid his big hand on the young man’s shoulder—and Christian, dimly recalling the effect of this touch in the days when he had first known it, thrilled at the novel restfulness it somehow now conferred.

“Only show me a son of yours,” said the old man, with tender gravity. “Let me see an heir before I die.”

Without further words, the two left him. Christian, staring at the shadowed door through which they had vanished, remained standing. His confused brain quailed in the presence of thoughts more stupendous than the ancient hills outside.