“And then she was afraid?”

“No, it was rather the other way round.  It was me that was afraid.  You see, I thought I should take all the blame off the old man by going off with her—­him being away and all, I didn’t think as even the Jervaises could very well blame it on to him, overlooking what she pointed out, as once we’d gone they’d simply have to get rid of him, too, blame or no blame.  They’d never stand having him and mother and Anne within a mile of the Hall, as sort of relations. I ought to have seen that, but one forgets these things at the time.”

I nodded sympathetically.

“So what it came to,” he continued, “was that we might as well face it out as not.  She’s like that—­likes to have things straight and honest.  So do I, for the matter of that; but once you’ve been a gentleman’s servant it gets in your blood or something.  I was three years as groom and so on up at the Hall before I went to Canada.  Should have been there now if it hadn’t been for mother.  I was only a lad of sixteen when I went into service, you see, and when I came back I got into the old habits again.  I tell you it’s difficult once you’ve been in service to get out o’ the way of feeling that, well, old Jervaise, for instance, is a sort of little lord god almighty.”

“I can understand that,” I agreed, and added, “but I’m rather sorry for him, old Jervaise.  He has been badly cut up, I think.”

Banks looked at me sharply, with one of his keen, rather challenging turns of expression.  “Sorry for him?  You needn’t be,” he said.  “I could tell you something—­at least, I can’t—­but you can take it from me that you needn’t waste your pity on him.”

I realised that this was another reference to that “pull” I had heard of, which could not be used, and was not even to be spoken of to me after I had been admitted to Banks’s confidence.  I realised, further, that my guessing must have gone hopelessly astray.  Here was the suggestion of something far more sinister than a playing on the old man’s affection for his youngest child.

“Very well, I’ll take it from you,” I said.  “On the other hand, you can take it from me that old Jervaise is very much upset.”

Banks smiled grimly.  “He’s nervous at dangerous corners, like you said,” he returned.  “However, we needn’t go into that—­the point is as I began to tell you, that we’ve decided to face it out; and well, you saw me go up to the Hall this morning.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Banks said.  “I saw the old man and Mr. Frank, and they were both polite in a sort of way—­no shouting nor anything, though, of course, Mr. Frank tried to browbeat me—­but very firm that nothing had got to happen; no engagement or running away or anything.  She was to come home and I was to go back to Canada—­they’d pay my fare and so on...”

“And you?”

“Me?  I just stuck to it we were going to get married, and Mr. Frank tried to threaten me till the old man stopped him, and then I came out.”