“It is a very great upset of all my plans,” John said, still with more gravity than usual.  “I had fully intended—­indeed, I had hoped, old fellow, that you and I would be partners some day.”

“Oh, John,” exclaimed Valentine, a sudden revulsion of feeling almost overcoming him now he found that his fears as to what John might be thinking of were groundless.  “Oh, John, I wish we could!  It might be a great deal better for me.  And so you really did mean it?  You are more like a brother than anything else.  I hate the thought of that ill-starred house; I think I’ll stop here with you.”

“Nonsense,” said John, just as composedly and as gravely as ever; “what do you mean, you foolish lad?” But he appreciated the affection Valentine had expressed for him, and kindly put his hand on his young relative’s shoulder.

Valentine had never found it so hard to understand himself as at that moment.  His course was free, Giles could not speak, and John knew nothing; yet either the firm clasp of a man’s hand on his shoulder roused him to the fact that he cared for this man so much that he could be happier under his orders than free and his own master, or else his father’s words gathered force by mere withdrawal of opposition.

For a moment he almost wished John did know; he wanted to be fortified in his desire to remain with him; and yet—­No! he could not tell him; that would be taking his fate out of his own hands for ever.

“You think then I must—­take it up; in short, go and live in it?” he said at length.

“Think!” exclaimed John, with energy and vehemence; “why, who could possibly think otherwise?”

“I’ve always been accustomed to go in and out amongst a posse of my own relations.”

“Your own relations must come to you then,” answered John pleasantly, “I, for one.  Why, Melcombe’s only fifty or sixty miles off, man!”

“It seems to me now that I’m very sorry for that poor little fellow’s death,” Valentine went on.

“Nobody could have behaved better during his lifetime than you have done,” John said.  “Why, Val,” he exclaimed, looking down, “you astonish me!”

Valentine was vainly struggling with tears.  John went and bolted the door; then got some wine, and brought him a glass.

“As calm as possible during my father’s death and funeral,” he thought, “and now half choking himself, forsooth, because his fortune’s made, and he must leave his relations.  I trust and hope, with all my heart, that Dorothea is not at the bottom of this!  I supposed his nerves to be strong enough for anything.”

Valentine was deadly pale.  He put up a shaking hand for the glass, and as he drank the wine, and felt the blood creeping warmly about his limbs again, he thought “John knows nothing whatever.  No wonder he is astonished, he little thinks what a leap in the dark it is.”

And so the die was cast.

A few days after this Gladys and Barbara received letters; the first ran as follows:—­