“Once and for all, Anne, I will not give it up whilst I have any breath left in my body, and I take my oath that unless you help me, and help me honestly, I will expose you.”

“Oh!  I am your very humble servant; you may count on me.  The galley-slave pulls well when the lash hangs over his shoulders,” and she laughed coldly.

Just then a servant announced that Mr. Caresfoot was at the door, and anxious to speak to his cousin.  He was ordered to show him into the drawing-room.  As soon as he had gone on his errand, George said,

“I will not see him; say I am too unwell.  But do you go, and see that you make the most of your chance.”

Lady Bellamy nodded, and left the room.  She found Philip in the drawing-room.

“Ah! how do you do, Mr. Caresfoot?  I come from your cousin to say that he cannot see you to-day; he has scarcely recovered sufficiently from the illness through which I have been nursing him; but of course you know all about that.”

“Oh! yes, Lady Bellamy, I have heard all about it, including your own brave behaviour, to which, the doctor tells me, George owes his life.  I am sorry that he cannot see me, though.  I have just come down from town, and called in on my way from Roxham.  I had some rather important business that I wanted to speak about.”

“About your offer to repurchase the Isleworth lands?” she asked.

“Ah! you know of the affair.  Yes, that was it.”

“Then I am commissioned to give you a reply.”

Philip listened anxiously.

“Your cousin absolutely refuses to sell any part of the lands.”

“Will nothing chance his determination?  I am ready to give a good price, and pay a separate valuation for the timber.”

“Nothing; he does not intend to sell.”

A deep depression spread itself over her hearer’s face.

“Then there go the hopes of twenty years,” he said.  “For twenty long years, ever since my misfortune, I have toiled and schemed to get these lands back, and now it is all for nothing.  Well, there is nothing more to be said,” and he turned to go.

“Stop a minute, Mr. Caresfoot.  Do you know, you interest me very much.”

“I am proud to interest so charming a lady,” he answered, a touch of depressed gallantry.

“That is as it should be; but you interest me because you are an instance of the truth of the saying that every man has some ruling passion, if only one could discover it.  Why do you want these particular lands?  Your money will buy others just as good.”

“Why does a Swiss get home-sick?  Why does a man defrauded of his own wish to recover it?”

Lady Bellamy mused a little.

“What would you say if I showed you an easy way to get them?”

Philip turned sharply round with a new look of hope upon his face.

“You would earn my eternal gratitude—­a gratitude that I should be glad to put into a practical shape.”