“Exactly.  Well, just at the time, old Prescott died, you may remember that Mr. Showers, the member of the Government, was unseated on petition from some borough or other, and came down here post-haste to get re-elected.  But he had Sir Percy Vivyan against him, and, as I know to my cost, this benighted country is not fond of those who preach the gospel of progress.  Bellamy, who is a stout Radical, as you know—­chiefly, I fancy, because there is more to be got out of that side of politics—­got the job as Showers’ agent.  But, three days before, it became quite clear that his cause, cabinet minister or not, was hopeless.  Then it was that Mrs.—­I beg her pardon, Lady—­Bellamy came to the fore.  Just as Showers was thinking of withdrawing, she demanded a private interview with him.  Next day she posted off to old Sir Percy, who is a perfect fool of the chivalrous school, and was desperately fond of her, and, mirabile dictu, that evening Sir Percy withdraws on the plea of ill-health or some such rubbish, and Showers walks over.  Within three months, Mr. Bellamy becomes Sir John Bellamy, nominally for his services as town-clerk of Roxham, and I hear that old Sir Percy is now perfectly rampant, and goes about cursing her ladyship up hill and down dale, and declaring that he has been shockingly taken-in.  How our mutual friend worked the ropes is more than I can tell you, but she did work them, and to some purpose.”

“She is an uncommonly handsome woman.”

“Ah! yes, you’re right there, she is A1; but let us stroll out a little; it is a fine evening for the 30th of April.  To-morrow will be the 1st of May, so it will, a day neither of us are likely to forget.”

Philip winced at the allusion, but said nothing.

“By the way,” George went on, “I am expecting a visitor, my ward, young Arthur Heigham, who is just back from India.  He will be twenty-five in a few days, when he comes of age, and is coming down to settle up.  The fact is, that ten thousand of his money is on the Jotley property, and both Bellamy and myself are anxious that it should stop there for the present, as if the mortgage were called in it might be awkward.”

“Is he well off?”

“Comfortably; about a thousand a year; comes of an old family too.  Bellamy and I knew his father, Captain Heigham, slightly, when we were in business.  His wife, by the way, was a distant cousin of ours.  They are both dead now; the captain was wiped out at Inkerman, and, for some unknown reason, left me the young gentleman’s sole guardian and joint trustee with a London lawyer, a certain Mr. Borley.  I have never seen him yet—­my ward, I mean—­he has always been at Eton, or Cambridge, or in India, or somewhere.”

Here Philip began to manifest signs of considerable uneasiness, the cause of which was sufficiently apparent; for, whilst they were talking, a very large and savage-looking animal of the sheep-dog order had emerged from the house, and was following him up and down, growling in a low and ominous undertone, its nose being the while glued to his calves as they alternately presented themselves in his line of vision.