Frank changed color, and rose nervously from his chair.

“Are my prospects altered?” he asked.  “Are Mr. Vanstone’s plans for me not to be carried out?  He told Magdalen his will had provided for her.  She repeate d his words to me; she said I ought to know all that his goodness and generosity had done for both of us.  How can his death make a change?  Has anything happened?”

“Wait till Mr. Pendril comes back from Combe-Raven,” said his father.  “Question him—­don’t question me.”

The ready tears rose in Frank’s eyes.

“You won’t be hard on me?” he pleaded, faintly.  “You won’t expect me to go back to London without seeing Magdalen first?”

Mr. Clare looked thoughtfully at his son, and considered a little before he replied.

“You may dry your eyes,” he said.  “You shall see Magdalen before you go back.”

He left the room, after making that reply, and withdrew to his study.  The books lay ready to his hand as usual.  He opened one of them and set himself to read in the customary manner.  But his attention wandered; and his eyes strayed away, from time to time, to the empty chair opposite—­the chair in which his old friend and gossip had sat and wrangled with him good-humoredly for many and many a year past.  After a struggle with himself he closed the book.  “D—­n the chair!” he said:  “it will talk of him; and I must listen.”  He reached down his pipe from the wall and mechanically filled it with tobacco.  His hand shook, his eyes wandered back to the old place; and a heavy sigh came from him unwillingly.  That empty chair was the only earthly argument for which he had no answer:  his heart owned its defeat and moistened his eyes in spite of him.  “He has got the better of me at last,” said the rugged old man.  “There is one weak place left in me still—­and he has found it.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Pendril entered the shrubbery, and followed the path which led to the lonely garden and the desolate house.  He was met at the door by the man-servant, who was apparently waiting in expectation of his arrival.

“I have an appointment with Miss Garth.  Is she ready to see me?”

“Quite ready, sir.”

“Is she alone?”

“Yes, sir.”

“In the room which was Mr. Vanstone’s study?”

“In that room, sir.”

The servant opened the door and Mr. Pendril went in.

The governess stood alone at the study window.  The morning was oppressively hot, and she threw up the lower sash to admit more air into the room, as Mr. Pendril entered it.