immediately after her return.  An offer had then been made by the Courton family to give Julia her income without opposition if she would surrender Ongar Park.  To this she had made objections with indignation, and Mr. Turnbull, though he had at first thought that she would be wise to comply with the terms proposed, had done her work for her with satisfactory expedition.  Since those days she had not seen him, but now she had summoned him, and he was with her in Bolton Street.

“I want to speak to you, Mr. Turnbull,” she said, “about that place down in Surrey.  I don’t like it.”

“Not like Ongar Park?” he said, “I have always heard that it is so charming.”

“It is not charming to me.  It is a sort of property that I don’t want, and I mean to give it up.”

“Lord Ongar’s uncles would buy your interest in it, I have no doubt.”

“Exactly.  They have sent to me, offering to do so.  My brother-in-law, Sir Hugh Clavering, called on me with a message from them saying so.  I thought that he was very foolish to come, and so I told him.  Such things should be done by one’s lawyers.  Don’t you think so, Mr. Turnbull?” Mr. Turnbull smiled as he declared that, of course, he, being a lawyer, was of that opinion.  “I am afraid they will have thought me uncivil,” continued Julia, “as I spoke rather brusquely to Sir Hugh Clavering.  I am not inclined to take any steps through Sir Hugh Clavering, but I do not know that I have any reason to be angry with the little lord’s family.”

“Really, Lady Ongar, I think not.  When your ladyship returned there was some opposition thought of for a while, but I really do not think it was their fault.”

“No, it was not their fault.”

“That was my feeling at the time; it was, indeed.”

“It was the fault of Lord Ongar—­of my husband.  As regards all the Courtons, I have no word of complaint to make.  It is not to be expected—­it is not desirable that they and I should be friends.  It is impossible, after what has passed, that there should be such friendship.  But they have never injured me, and I wish to oblige them.  Had Ongar Park suited me, I should doubtless have kept it; but it does not suit me, and they are welcome to have it back again.

“Has a price been named, Lady Ongar?”

“No price need be named.  There is to be no question of a price.  Lord Ongar’s mother is welcome to the place—­or rather to such interest as I have in it.”

“And to pay a rent?” suggested Mr. Turnbull.

“To pay no rent.  Nothing would induce me to let the place, or to sell my right in it.  I will have no bargain about it.  But as nothing also will induce me to live there, I am not such a dog in the manger as to wish to keep it.  If you will have the kindness to see Mr. Courton’s lawyer, and to make arrangements about it.”

“But, Lady Ongar, what you call your right in the estate is worth over twenty thousand pounds—­it is, indeed.  You could borrow twenty thousand pounds on the security of it to-morrow.”