“Old idiot!” ejaculated Mr. Quest to himself, “he will put Cossey’s back up and spoil the game.”

“Well,” said Edward aloud and colouring almost to his eyes.  “That old gentleman knows how to be insolent.”

“You must not mind him, Mr. Cossey,” answered Quest hastily.  “The poor old boy has a very good idea of himself—­he is dreadfully injured because Cossey and Son are calling in the mortgages after the family has dealt with them for so many generations; and he thinks that you have something to do with it.”

“Well if he does he might as well be civil.  It does not particularly incline a fellow to go aside to pull him out of the ditch, just to be cut in that fashion—­I have half a mind to order my trap and go.”

“No, no, don’t do that—­you must make allowances, you must indeed—­ look, here is Miss de la Molle coming to ask you to play tennis.”

At this moment Ida arrived and took off Edward Cossey with her, not a little to the relief of Mr. Quest, who began to fear that the whole scheme was spoiled by the Squire’s unfortunate magnificence of manner.

Edward played his game, having Ida herself as his partner.  It cannot be said that the set was a pleasant one for the latter, who, poor woman, was doing her utmost to bring up her courage to the point necessary to the carrying out of the appeal ad misericordiam, which she had decided to make as soon as the game was over.  However, chance put an opportunity in her way, for Edward Cossey, who had a curious weakness for flowers, asked her if she would show him her chrysanthemums, of which she was very proud.  She consented readily enough.  They crossed the lawn, and passing through some shrubbery reached the greenhouse, which was placed at the end of the Castle itself.  Here for some minutes they looked at the flowers, just now bursting into bloom.  Ida, who felt exceedingly nervous, was all the while wondering how on earth she could broach so delicate a subject, when fortunately Mr. Cossey himself gave her the necessary opening.

“I can’t imagine, Miss de la Molle,” he said, “what I have done to offend your father—­he almost cut me just now.”

“Are you sure that he saw you, Mr. Cossey; he is very absent-minded sometimes?”

“Oh yes, he saw me, but when I offered to shake hands with him he only bowed in rather a crushing way and passed on.”

Ida broke off a Scarlet Turk from its stem, and nervously began to pick the bloom to pieces.

“The fact is, Mr. Cossey—­the fact is, my father, and indeed I also, are in great trouble just now, about money matters you know, and my father is very apt to be prejudiced,—­in short, I rather believe that he thinks you may have something to do with his difficulties—­but perhaps you know all about it.”

“I know something, Miss de la Molle,” said he gravely, “and I hope and trust you do not believe that I have anything to do with the action which Cossey and Son have thought fit to take.”