The breakfast gong had just sounded at Hoddon Grey. The hour was a quarter to nine. Prayers in the chapel were over, and Lord and Lady Newbury, at either end of the table, spectacles on nose, were opening and reading their letters.

"Where is Edward?" said Lady William, looking round.

"My dear!" Lord William's tone was mildly reproachful.

"Of course—I forgot for a moment!" And on Lady William's delicately withered cheek there appeared a slight flush. For it was their wedding-day, and never yet, since his earliest childhood, had their only son, their only child, failed, either personally or by deputy, to present his mother with a bunch of June roses on the morning of this June anniversary. While he was in India the custom was remitted to the old head gardener, who always received, however, from the absent son the appropriate letter or message to be attached to the flowers. And one of the most vivid memories Lady William retained of her son's boyhood showed her the half-open door of an inn bedroom at Domodossola, and Edward's handsome face—the face of a lad of eleven—looking in, eyes shining, white teeth grinning, as he held aloft in triumph the great bunch of carnations and roses for which the little fellow had scoured the sleepy town in the early hours. They had taken him abroad for the first time, during a break between his preparatory school and Eton, when he was convalescing from a dangerous attack of measles; and Lady William could never forget the charm of the boy's companionship, his eager docility and sweetness, his delight in the Catholic churches and services, his ready friendships with the country-folk, with the coachman who drove them, and the sagrestani who led them through dim chapels and gleaming monuments.

But when indeed had he not been their delight and treasure from his youth up till now? And though in the interest of a long letter from her Bishop to whom she was devoted, Lady William had momentarily forgotten the date, this wedding-day was, in truth, touched, for both parents, with a special consecration and tenderness, since it was the first since Edward's own betrothal. And there beside Lady William's plate lay a large jeweler's case, worn and old-fashioned, whereof the appearance was intimately connected both with the old facts and the new.

Meanwhile, a rainy morning, in which, however, there was a hidden sunlight, threw a mild illumination into the Hoddon Grey dining-room, upon the sparely provided breakfast-table, the somewhat austere line of family portraits on the gray wall, the Chippendale chairs shining with the hand-polish of generations, the Empire clock of black and ormolu on the chimney-piece and on the little tan spitz, sitting up with wagging tail and asking eyes, on Lady William's left. Neither she nor her husband ever took more than—or anything else than—an egg with their coffee and toast. They secretly despised people who ate heavy breakfasts, and the extra allowance made for Edward's young appetite, or for guests, was never more than frugal. Sir Wilfrid Bury, who was a hearty eater, was accustomed to say of the Hoddon Grey fare that it deprived the Hoddon Grey fasts—which were kept according to the strict laws of the Church—of any merit whatever. It left you nothing to give up.

Nevertheless, this little morning scene at Hoddon Grey possessed, for the sensitive eye, a peculiar charm. The spaces of the somewhat empty room matched the bareness of the white linen, the few flowers standing separately here and there upon it, and the few pieces of old silver. The absence of any loose abundance of food or gear, the frugal refined note, were of course symbolic of the life lived in the house. The Newburys were rich. Their beautifully housed, and beautifully kept estate, with its nobly adorned churches, its public halls and institutions, proclaimed the fact; but in their own private sphere it was ignored as much as possible.

"Here he is!" exclaimed Lady William, turning to the door with something of a flutter. "Oh, Edward, they are lovely!"

Her son laid the dewy bunch beside her plate and then kissed his mother affectionately.

"Many happy returns!—and you, father! Hullo—mother, you've got a secret—you're blushing! What's up?"

And still holding Lady William by the arm, he looked smilingly from her to the jeweler's case on the table.

"They must be reset, dear; but they're fine."

Lady William opened the case, and pushed it toward him. It contained a necklace and pendant, two bracelets, and a stomacher brooch of diamonds and sapphire—magnificent stones in a heavy gold setting, whereof the Early Victorianism cried aloud. The set had been much admired in the great exhibition of 1851, where indeed it had been bought by Lady William's father as a present to his wife. Secretly Lady William still thought it superb; but she was quite aware that no young woman would wear it.

Edward looked at it with amusement.

"The stones are gorgeous. When Cartier's had a go at it, it'll be something like! I can remember your wearing it, mother, at Court, when I was a small child. And you're going to give it to Marcia?" He kissed her again.

"Take it, dear, and ask her how she'd like them set," said his mother, happily, putting the box into his hand; after which he was allowed to sit down to his breakfast.

Lord William meanwhile had taken no notice of the little incident of the jewels. He was deep in a letter which seemed to have distracted his attention entirely from his son and to be causing him distress. When he had finished it he pushed it away and sat gazing before him as though still held by the recollection of it.

"I never knew a more sad, a more difficult case," he said, presently, speaking, it seemed, to himself.

Edward turned with a start.

"Another letter, father?"

Lord William pushed it over to him.

Newbury read it, and as he did so, in his younger face there appeared the same expression as in his father's; a kind of grave sadness, in which there was no trace of indecision, though much of trouble. Lady William asked no question, though in the course of her little pecking meal, she threw some anxious glances at her husband and son. They preserved a strict silence at table on the subject of the letter; but as soon as breakfast was over, Lord William made a sign to his son, and they went out into the garden together, walking away from the house.

"You know we can't do this, Edward!" said Lord William, with energy, as soon as they were in solitude.

Edward's eyes assented.

His father resumed, impetuously: "How can I go on in close relations with a man—my right hand in the estate—almost more than my agent—associated with all the church institutions and charities—a communicant—secretary of the communicant's guild!—our friend and helper in all our religious business—who has been the head and front of the campaign against immorality in this village—responsible, with us, for many decisions that must have seemed harsh to poor things in trouble—who yet now proposes, himself, to maintain what we can only regard—what everybody on this estate has been taught to regard—as an immoral connection with a married woman! Of course I understand his plea. The thing is not to be done openly. The so-called wife is to move away; nothing more is to be seen of her here; but the supposed marriage is to continue, and they will meet as often as his business here makes it possible. Meanwhile his powers and duties on this estate are to be as before. I say the proposal is monstrous! It would falsify our whole life here,—and make it one ugly hypocrisy!"

There was silence a little. Then Newbury asked:

"You of course made it plain once more—in your letter yesterday—that there would be no harshness—that as far as money went—"

"I told him he could have whatever was necessary! We wished to force no man's conscience; but we could not do violence to our own. If they decided to remain together—then he and we must part; but we would make it perfectly easy for them to go elsewhere—in England or the colonies. If they separate, and she will accept the arrangements we propose for her—then he remains here, our trusted friend and right hand as before."

"It is, of course, the wrench of giving up the farm—"

Lord William raised his hands in protesting distress.

"Perfectly true, of course, that he's given the best years of his life to it!—that he's got all sorts of experiments on hand—that he can never build up exactly the same sort of thing elsewhere—that the farm is the apple of his eye. It's absolutely true—every word of it! But then, why did he take this desperate step!—without consulting any of his friends! It's no responsibility of ours!"

The blanched and delicate face of the old man showed the grief, the wound to personal affection he did not venture to let himself express, mingled with a rocklike steadiness of will.

"You have heard from the Cloan Sisters?"

"Last night. Nothing could be kinder. There is a little house close by the Sisterhood where she and the boy could live. They would give her work, and watch over her, like the angels they are,—and the boy could go to a day school. But they won't hear of it—they won't listen to it for a moment; and now—you see—they've put their own alternative plan before us, in this letter. He said to me, yesterday, that she was not religious by temperament—that she wouldn't understand the Sisters—nor they her—that she would be certain to rebel against their rules and regulations—and then all the old temptations would return. 'I have taken her life upon me,' he said, 'and I can't give her up. She is mine, and mine she will remain.' It was terribly touching. I could only say that I was no judge of his conscience, and never pretended to be; but that he could only remain here on our terms."

"The letter is curiously excitable—hardly legible even—very unlike Betts," said Newbury, turning it over thoughtfully.

"That's another complication. He's not himself. That attack of illness has somehow weakened him. I can't reason with him as I used to do."

The father and son walked on in anxious cogitation, till Newbury observed a footman coming with a note.

"From Coryston Place, sir. Waiting an answer."

Newbury read it first with eagerness, then with a clouded brow.

"Ask the servant to tell Miss Coryston I shall be with them for luncheon."

When the footman was out of earshot, Newbury turned to his father, his face showing the quick feeling behind.

"Did you know that Mr. and Mrs. Betts are trying to get at Marcia?"

"No! I thought Coryston might be endeavoring to influence her. That fellow's absolutely reckless! But what can she have to do with the Bettses themselves? Really, the questions that young women concern themselves with to-day!" cried Lord William, not without vehemence. "Marcia must surely trust you and your judgment in such a matter."

Newbury flushed.

"I'm certain—she will," he said, rather slowly, his eyes on the ground. "But Mrs. Betts has been to see her."

"A great impertinence! A most improper proceeding!" said Lord William, hotly. "Is that what her note says? My dear Edward, you must go over and beg Marcia to let this matter alone! It is not for her to be troubled with at all. She must really leave it to us."

The wandlike old man straightened his white head a trifle haughtily.

A couple of hours later Newbury set out to walk to Coryston. The day was sultry, and June in all its power ruled the countryside. The hawthorns were fading; the gorse was over; but the grass and the young wheat were rushing up, the wild roses threw their garlands on every hedge, and the Coryston trout-stream, beside which Newbury walked, brimming as it was, on its chalk bed, would soon be almost masked from sight by the lush growths which overhung its narrow stream, twisting silverly through the meadows.

The sensitive mind and conscience of a man, alive, through the long discipline of religion, to many kinds of obligation, were, at this moment, far from happy, even with this flaming June about him, and the beloved brought nearer by every step. The thought of Marcia, the recollection of her face, the expectation of her kiss, thrilled indeed in his veins. He was not yet thirty, and the forces of his life were still rising. He had never felt his manhood so vigorous, nor his hopes so high. Nevertheless he was haunted—pursued—by the thought of those two miserable persons, over whom he and his father held, it seemed, a power they had certainly never sought, and hated to exercise. Yet how disobey the Church!—and how ignore the plain words of her Lord—"He that marrieth her that is put away committeth adultery'"?

"Marriage is for Christians indissoluble. It bears the sacramental stamp. It is the image, the outward and visible sign of that most awful and most sacred union between Christ and the soul. To break the church's law concerning it, and to help others to break it, is—for Christians—to sin. To acquiesce in it, to be a partner to the dissolution of marriage for such reasons as Mrs. Betts had to furnish, was to injure not only the Christian church, but the human society, and, in the case of people with a high social trust, to betray that trust."

These were the ideas, the ideas of his family, and his church, which held him inexorably. He saw no escape from them. Yet he suffered from the enforcement of them, suffered truly and sincerely, even in the dawn of his own young happiness. What could he do to persuade the two offenders to the only right course!—or if that were impossible, to help them to take up life again where he and his would not be responsible for what they did or accomplices in their wrong-doing?

Presently, to shorten his road, he left the park, and took to a lane outside it. And here he suddenly perceived that he was on the borders of the experimental farm, that great glory of the estate, famous in the annals of English country life before John Betts had ever seen it, but doubly famous during the twenty years that he had been in charge of it. There was the thirty-acre field like one vast chessboard, made up of small green plots; where wheat was being constantly tempted and tried with new soils and new foods; and farmers from both the old and new worlds would come eagerly to watch and learn. There were the sheds where wheat was grown, not in open ground, but in pots under shelter; there was the long range of buildings devoted to cattle, and all the problems of food; there was the new chemical laboratory which his father had built for John Betts; and there in the distance was the pretty dwelling-house which now sheltered the woman from whose presence on the estate all the trouble had arisen.

A trouble which had been greatly aggravated by Coryston's presence on the scene. Newbury, for all that his heart was full of Marcia, was none the less sorely indignant with her brother, eager to have it out with him, and to fling back his charges in his face.

Suddenly, a form appeared behind a gate flanked by high hedges.

Newbury recognized John Betts. A tall, broad-shouldered man, with slightly grizzled hair, a countenance tanned and seamed by long exposure, and pale-blue spectacled eyes, opened the gate and stepped into the road.

"I saw you coming, Mr. Edward, and thought I should like a word with you."

"By all means," said Newbury, offering his hand. But Betts took no notice of it. They moved on together—a striking pair: the younger man, with his high, narrow brow and strong though slender build, bearing himself with the unconscious air of authority, given by the military life, and in this case also, no doubt, by the influence of birth and tradition; as fine a specimen of the English ruling class at its moral and physical best, as any student of our social life would be likely to discover; and beside him a figure round whom the earth-life in its primitive strength seemed to be still clinging, though the great brain of the man had long since made him its master and catechist, and not, like the ordinary man of the fields, farmer or laborer, its slave. He, too, was typical of his class, of that large modern class of the new countryman, armed by science and a precise knowledge, which has been developed from the primitive artists of the world—plowman, reaper, herdsman; who understood nothing and discovered everything. A strong, taciturn, slightly slouching fellow; vouched for by the quiet blue eyes, and their honest look; at this moment, however, clouded by a frown of distress. And between the two men there lay the memory of years of kindly intercourse—friendship, loyalty, just dealing.

"Your father will have got a letter from me this morning, Mr. Edward," began Betts, abruptly.

"He did. I left him writing to you." The young man's voice was singularly gentle, even deferential.

"You read it, I presume?"

Newbury made a sign of assent.

"Is there any hope for us, Mr. Edward?"

Betts turned to look into his companion's face. A slight tremor in the normally firm lips betrayed the agitation behind the question.

Newbury's troubled eyes answered him.

"You don't know what it costs us—not to be able to meet you—in that way!"

"You think the arrangement we now propose—would still compromise you?"

"How could we?" pleaded the younger man, with very evident pain. "We should be aiding and abetting—what we believe to be wrong—conniving at it indeed; while we led people—deliberately—to believe what was false."

"Then it is still your ultimatum—that we must separate?"

"If you remain here, in our service—our representative. But if you would only allow us to make the liberal provision we would like to make for you—elsewhere!"

Betts was silent a little; then he broke out, looking round him.

"I have been twenty years at the head of that farm. I have worked for it night and day. It's been my life. Other men have worked for their wives and children. I've worked for the farm. There are experiments going on there—you know it, Mr. Edward—that have been going on for years. They're working out now—coming to something—I've earned that reward. How can I begin anywhere else? Besides, I'm flagging. I'm not the man I was. The best of me has gone into that farm." He raised his arm to point. "And now, you're going to drive me from it."

"Oh, Betts—why did you—why did you!" cried Newbury, in a sudden rush of grief. The other turned.

"Because—a woman came—and clung to me! Mr. Edward, when you were a boy I saw you once take up a wounded leveret in the fields—a tiny thing. You made yourself kill it for mercy's sake—and then you sat down and cried over it—for the thought of all it had suffered. Well, my wife—she is my wife too!—is to me like that wounded thing. Only I've given her life!—and he that takes her from me will kill her."

"And the actual words of our Blessed Lord, Betts, matter nothing to you?" Newbury spoke with a sudden yet controlled passion. "I have heard you quote them often. You seemed to believe and feel with us. You signed a petition we all sent to the Bishop only last year."

"That seems so long ago, Mr. Edward,—so long ago. I've been through a lot since—a lot—" repeated Betts, absently, as though his mind had suddenly escaped from the conversation into some dream of its own. Then he came to a stop.

"Well, good morning to you, sir—good morning. There's something doing in the laboratory I must be looking after."

"Let me come and talk to you to-night, Betts! We have some notion of a Canadian opening that might attract you. You know the great Government farm near Ottawa? Why not allow my father to write to the Director—"

Betts interrupted.

"Come when you like, Mr. Edward. Thank you kindly. But—it's no good—no good."

The voice dropped.

With a slight gesture of farewell, Betts walked away.

Newbury went on his road, a prey to very great disturbance of mind. The patience—humbleness even—of Betts's manner struck a pang to the young man's heart. The farm director was generally a man of bluff, outspoken address, quick-tempered, and not at all accustomed to mince his words. What Newbury perceived was a man only half persuaded by his own position; determined to cling to it, yet unable to justify it, because, in truth, the ideas put up against him by Newbury and his father were the ideas on which a large section of his own life had been based. It is not for nothing that a man is for years a devout communicant, and in touch thereby with all the circle of beliefs on which Catholicism, whether of the Roman or Anglican sort, depends.

The white towers of Coryston appeared among the trees. His steps quickened. Would she come to meet him?

Then his mind filled with repugnance. Must he discuss this melancholy business again with her—with Marcia? How could he? It was not right!—not seemly! He thought with horror of the interview between her and Mrs. Betts—his stainless Marcia, and that little besmirched woman, of whose life between the dissolution of her first marriage, and her meeting with Betts, the Newburys knew more than they wished to know, more, they believed, than Betts himself knew.

And the whole June day protested with him—its beauty, the clean radiance of the woods, the limpid flashing of the stream....

He hurried on. Ah, there she was!—a fluttering vision through the new-leafed trees.

The wood was deep—spectators none. She came to his arms, and lightly clasped her own round his neck, hiding her face....

When they moved on together, hand in hand, Marcia, instinctively putting off what must be painful, spoke first of the domestic scene of the day before—of Arthur and her mother—and the revelation sprung upon them all.

"You remember how terrified I was—lest mother should know? And she's taken it so calmly!"

She told the story. Lady Coryston, it seemed, had canceled all the arrangements for the Coryston meeting, and spoke no more of it. She was cool and distant, indeed, toward Arthur, but only those who knew her well would perhaps have noticed it. And he, on his side, having gained his point, had been showing himself particularly amiable; had gone off that morning to pay political visits in the division; and was doing his duty in the afternoon by captaining the village cricket team in their Whitsuntide match. But next week, of course, he would be in London again for the reassembling of Parliament, and hanging about the Glenwilliams' house, as before.

"They're not engaged?"

"Oh dear, no! Coryston doesn't believe she means it seriously at all. He also thinks that mother is plotting something."

"When can I see Coryston?" Newbury turned to her with a rather forced smile. "You know, darling, he'll have to get used to me as a brother!"

"He says he wants to see you—to—to have it out with you," said Marcia, awkwardly. Then with a sudden movement, she clasped both her hands round Newbury's arm.

"Edward!—do—do make us all happy!"

He looked down on the liquid eyes, the fresh young face raised appealingly to his.

"How can I make you happy?" He lifted one hand and kissed it. "You darling!—what can I do?"

But as he spoke he knew what she meant and dreaded the coming moment. That she should ask anything in these magical days that he could not at once lay at her feet!—she, who had promised him herself!

"Please—let Mr. Betts stay—please, Edward! Oh, I was so sorry for her yesterday!"

"We are all so sorry for her," he said, after a pause. "My father and mother will do all they can."

"Then you will let him stay?" Her white brow dropped caressingly against him.

"Of course!—if he will only accept my father's conditions," he said, unwillingly, hating to see her bright look darkening.

She straightened herself.

"If they separate, you mean?"

"I'm afraid that's what they ought to do."

"But it would break their hearts."

He threw her a sudden flashing look, as though a sword gleamed.

"It would make amends."

"For what they have done? But they don't feel like that!" she pleaded, her color rising. "They think themselves properly married, and that no one has a right to interfere with them. And when the law says so too, Edward?—Won't everybody think it very hard?"

"Yes, we shall be blamed," he said, quietly. "But don't you see, dearest, that, if they stay, we seem to condone the marriage, to say that it doesn't matter,—what they have done?—when in truth it seems to us a black offense—"

"Against what—or whom?" she asked, wondering.

The answer came unflinchingly:

"Against our Lord—and His Church."

The revolt within showed itself in her shining eyes.

"Ought we to set up these standards for other people? And they don't ask to stay here!—at least she doesn't. That's what Mrs. Betts came to say to me—"

Marcia threw herself into an eager recapitulation of Mrs. Betts's arguments. Her innocence, her ignorance, her power of feeling, and her instinctive claim to have her own way and get what she wanted,—were all perceptible in her pleading. Newbury listened with discomfort and distress—not yielding, however, by the fraction of an inch, as she soon discovered. When she came to an abrupt pause, the wounded pride of a foreseen rebuff dawning in her face, Newbury broke out:

"Darling, I can't discuss it with you! Won't you trust me—Won't you believe that neither father nor I would cause these poor things one moment's pain—if we could help it?"

Marcia drew away from him. He divined the hurt in her as she began twisting and untwisting a ribbon from her belt, while her lip trembled.

"I can't understand," she said, frowning—"I can't!"

"I know you can't. But won't you trust me? Dearest, you're going to trust me with your whole life? Won't you?"

He took her in his arms, bending his handsome head to hers, pleading with her in murmured words and caresses. And again she was conquered, she gave way; not without a galling consciousness of being refused, but thrilled all the same by the very fact that her lover could refuse her, in these first moments of their love. It brought home to her once more that touch of inaccessible strength, of mysterious command in Newbury, which from the beginning had both teased and won her.

But it was on her conscience at least to repeat to him what Coryston had said. She released herself to do it.

"Coryston said, Edward, I was to tell you to 'take care.' He has seen Mr. and Mrs. Betts, and he says they are very excitable people—and very much in love. He can't tell what might happen."

Newbury's face stiffened.

"I think I know them as well as Coryston. We will take every care, dearest. And as for thinking of it—why, it's hardly ever out of my mind—except when I'm with you! It hangs over me from morn till night."

Then at last she let the subject be dismissed; and they loitered home through the woods, drawing into their young veins the scents and hues of the June day. They were at that stage in love, when love has everything to learn, and learns it through ways as old and sweet as life. Each lover is discovering the other, and over the process, Nature, with her own ends in view, throws the eternal glamour.

Yet before they reached the house the "sweet bells" in Marcia's consciousness were once more jangling. There could be nothing but pleasure, indeed, in confessing how each was first attracted to the other; in clearing up the little misunderstandings of courtship; in planning for the future—the honeymoon—their London house—the rooms at Hoddon Grey that were to be refurnished for them. Lady William's jewels emerged from Newbury's pocket, and Marcia blazed with them, there and then, under the trees. They laughed together at the ugly setting, and planned a new one. But then a mention by Newbury of the Oxford friend who was to be his "best man" set him talking of the group of men who had been till now the leading influence in his life—friends made at Oxford, and belonging all of them to that younger High Church party of which he seemed to be the leader. Of two of them especially he talked with eager affection; one, an overworked High Churchman, with a parish in South London; another who belonged to a "Community," the Community of the Ascension, and was soon to go out to a mission-station in a very lonely and plague-stricken part of India.

And gradually, as he talked, Marcia fell silent. The persons he was speaking of, and the ideas they represented, were quite strange to her; although, as a matter of mere information, she knew of course that such people and such institutions existed. She was touched at first, then chilled, and if the truth be told—bored. It was with such topics, as with the Hoddon Grey view of the Betts case. Something in her could not understand.

She guided him deftly back to music, to the opera, to the night of Iphigenia. No jarring there! Each mind kindled the other, in a common delight. Presently they swung along, hand in hand, laughing, quoting, reminding each other of this fine thing, and that. Newbury was a considerable musician; Marcia was accustomed to be thought so. There was a new and singular joy in feeling herself but a novice and ignoramus beside him.

"How much you know!"—and then, shyly—"You must teach me!" With the inevitable male retort—"Teach you!—when you look at me like that!"

It was a golden hour. Yet when Marcia went to take off her hat before luncheon, and stood absently before the glass in a flush of happiness, it was as though suddenly a door opened behind her, and two sad and ghostly figures entered the room of life, pricking her with sharp remorse for having forgotten them.

And when she rejoined Newbury down-stairs, it seemed to her, from his silent and subdued manner, that something of the same kind had happened also to him.

"You haven't tackled Coryston yet?" said Sir Wilfrid, as he and Newbury walked back toward Hoddon Grey in the late afternoon, leaving Marcia and Lady Coryston in the clutches of a dressmaker, who had filled the drawing-room with a gleaming show of "English silks," that being Lady Coryston's special and peremptory command for the trousseau.

"No. He hasn't even vouchsafed me a letter."

Newbury laughed; but Sir Wilfrid perceived the hurt feeling which mingled with the laugh.

"Absurd fellow!" said Sir Wilfrid. "His proceedings here amuse me a good deal—but they naturally annoy his mother. You have heard of the business with the Baptists?"

Newbury had seen some account of it in the local paper.

"Well now they've got their land—through Coryston. There always was a square piece in the very middle of the village—an enclave belonging to an old maid, the daughter of a man who was a former butler of the Corystons, generations ago. She had migrated to Edinburgh, but Coryston has found her, got at her, and made her sell it—finding, I believe, the greater part of the money. It won't be long before he'll be laying the foundation-stone of the new Bethel—under his mother's nose."

"A truly kind and filial thing to do!" said the young High Churchman, flushing.

Sir Wilfrid eyed him slyly.

"Moral—don't keep a conscience—political or ecclesiastical. There's nothing but mischief comes of it. And, for Heaven's sake, don't be a posthumous villain!"

"What's that?"

"A man who makes an unjust will, and leaves everything to his wife," said Sir Wilfrid, calmly. "It's played the deuce in this family, and will go on doing it."

Whereupon the late Lord Coryston's executor produced an outline of the family history—up to date—for the benefit of Lady Coryston's future son-in-law. Newbury, who was always singularly ignorant of the town gossip on such matters, received it with amazement. Nothing could be more unlike the strictly traditional ways which governed his own family in matters of money and inheritance.

"So Arthur inherits everything!"

"Hm—does he?" said Sir Wilfrid.

"But I thought—"

"Wait and see, my dear fellow, wait and see. He will only marry Miss Glenwilliam over his mother's body—and if he does marry her he may whistle for the estates."

"Then James will have them?" said Newbury, smiling.

"Why not Marcia? She has as good a chance as anybody."

"I hope not!" Newbury's tone showed a genuine discomfort.

"What is Lady Coryston doing?"

"About the Glenwilliam affair? Ah!—what isn't she doing?" said Sir Wilfrid, significantly. "All the same, she lies low." As he spoke, his eyes fell upon the hillside and on the white cottage of the Atherstones emerging from the wood. He pointed.

"They will be there on Sunday fortnight—after the Martover meeting."

"Who? The Glenwilliams?"

Sir Wilfrid nodded.

"And I am of opinion that something will happen. When two highly inflammable bodies approach each other, something generally does happen."