“I did not know,” said Lady Mary.  “He always told me we were very badly off—­for our position.  I know nothing of business.  I did not attend much to Mr. Crawley’s explanations at the time.”

“You were unable to attend to him then,” said John; “but now, I think, you should understand the exact position of affairs.  Surely my cousins must have talked it over?”

“Isabella and Georgina never talk business before me.  You forget I am still a child in their eyes,” she said, smiling.  “I gathered that they were disappointed poor Timothy had left them nothing, and that they thought I had too much; that is all.”

“Their way of looking at it is scarcely in accordance with justice,” said John, shrugging his shoulders.  “They each have ten thousand pounds left to them by their father in settlement.  This was to return to the estate if they died unmarried or childless.  You have two thousand a year and the Dower House for your life; but you forfeit both if you re-marry.”

“Of course,” said Lady Mary, indifferently.  “I suppose that is the usual thing?”

“Not quite, especially when your personal property is so small.”

“I didn’t know I had any personal property.”

“About five hundred pounds a year; perhaps a little more.”

“From the Setouns!” she cried.

“From your father.  Surely you must have known?”

Lady Mary was silent a moment.  “No; I didn’t know,” she said presently.  “It doesn’t matter now, but Timothy never told me.  I thought I hadn’t a farthing in the world.  He never mentioned money matters to me at all.”  Then she laughed faintly.  “I could have lived all by myself in a cottage in Scotland, without being beholden to anybody—­on five hundred pounds a year, couldn’t I?”

“There is no reason you should not have a cottage in Scotland now, if you fancy one,” said John, cheerfully.

“The only memories I have in the world, outside my life in this place, are of my childhood at home,” she said.

John suddenly realized how very, very limited her experiences had been, and wondered less at the almost childish simplicity which characterized her, and which in no way marred her natural graciousness and dignity.  Lady Mary did not observe his silence, because her own thoughts were busy with a scene which memory had painted for her, and far away from the moonlit valley of the Youle.  She saw a tall, narrow, turreted building against a ruddy sunset sky; a bare ridge of hills crowned sparsely with ragged Scotch firs; a sea of heather which had seemed boundless to a childish imagination.

“I could not go back to Scotland now,” she said, with that little wistful-sounding, patient sob which moved John to such pity that he could scarce contain himself; “but some day, when I am free—­when nobody wants me.”

“London is the only place worth living in just now, whilst we are in such terrible anxiety,” he said boldly.  “At least there are the papers and telegrams all day long, and none of this dreary, long waiting between the posts; and there are other things—­to distract one’s attention, and keep up one’s courage.”