As he did so, Mr. Falconer walked past him into the smoking-room.  Mr. Griffenberg was alone there, seated in a big arm-chair with a cigar as black as a hat and as long as a penholder.

Falconer wheeled a chair up to him, and, in his blunt fashion, said: 

“You are in this railway scheme of Orme’s, Griffenberg?” Mr. Griffenberg nodded.

“And you?”

“Yes,” said Falconer, succinctly.  “I am joining.  I suppose it’s all right; Orme will be able to carry it through?”

Griffenberg emitted a thick cloud of smoke.

“It will try him a bit.  It’s a question of capital—­ready capital.  I’m helping him:  got his Oriental shares as cover.  A bit awkward for me, for I’m rather pushed just now—­that estate loan, you know.”

Falconer nodded.  “I know.  See here:  I’ll take those shares from you, if you like, and if you’ll say nothing about it.”

Mr. Griffenberg eyed his companion’s rugged face keenly.

“What for?” he asked.

Mr. Falconer smiled.

“That’s my business,” he said.  “The only thing that matters to you is, that by taking the shares off your hands I shall be doing you a service.”

“That’s true:  you shall have ’em,” said Mr. Griffenberg; “but I warn you it’s a heavy lot.”

“You shall have a cheque to-morrow,” said Mr. Falconer.  “Where did you get that cigar:  it takes my fancy?”

Mr. Griffenberg produced his cigar case with alacrity:  he liked Mr. Falconer’s way of doing business.

At the moment Stafford left the Villa, Ida was standing by the window in the drawing-room of Heron Hall.  On the table beside her lay a book which she had thrown down with a gesture of impatience.  She was too restless to read, or to work; and the intense quietude of the great house weighed upon her with the weight of a tomb.

All day, since she had left Stafford, his words of passionate love had haunted her.  They sang in her ears even as she spoke to her father or Jessie, or the dogs who followed her about with wistful eyes as if they were asking her what ailed her, and as if they would help her.

He loved her!  She had said it to herself a thousand times all through the long afternoon, the dragging evening.  He loved her.  It was so strange, so incredible.  They had only met three or four times; they had said so little to each other.  Why, she could remember almost every word.  He loved her, had knelt to her, he had told her so in passionate words, with looks which made her heart tremble, her breath come fast as she recalled them.  That is, he wanted her to be his wife, to give herself to him, to be with him always, never to leave him.

The strangeness, the suddenness of the thing overwhelmed her so that she could not think of it calmly.  He had asked her to think of it, to decide, to give him an answer.  Why could she not?  She had always, hitherto, known her own mind.  If anyone had asked her a question about the estate, about the farm, she had known what to answer, important as the question might have been.  But now she seemed as if her mind were paralyzed, as if she could not decide.  Was it because she had never thought of love; because she had never dreamt that anyone would love her so much as to want to have her by his side for all his life?