I laughed derisively.

“Married, Mr. Moyat!” I exclaimed.  “Why, I’m next door to a pauper.”

“There’s such a thing,” he remarked thoughtfully, “if one’s a steady sort of chap, and means work, as picking up a girl with a bit of brass now and then.”

“I can assure you, Mr. Moyat,” I said as coolly as possible, “that anything of that sort is out of the question so far as I am concerned.  I should never dream of even thinking of getting married till I had a home of my own and an income.”

He seemed about to say something, but checked himself.  We drove on in silence till we came to a dark pile of buildings standing a little way back from the road.  He moved his head towards it.

“They tell me Braster Grange is took after all,” he remarked.  “Mr. Hulshaw told me so this morning.”

I was very little interested, but was prepared to welcome any change in the conversation.

“Do you know who is coming there?” I asked.

“An American lady, I believe, name of Lessing.  I don’t know what strangers want coming to such a place, I’m sure.”

I glanced involuntarily over my shoulder.  Braster Grange was a long grim pile of buildings, which had been unoccupied for many years.  Between it and the sea was nothing but empty marshland.  It was one of the bleakest spots along the coast—­to the casual observer nothing but an arid waste of sands in the summer, a wilderness of desolation in the winter.  Only those who have dwelt in those parts are able to feel the fascination of that great empty land, a fascination potent enough, but of slow growth.  Mr. Moyat’s remark was justified.

We drove into his stable yard and clambered down.

“You’ll come in and have a bit of supper,” Mr. Moyat insisted.

I hesitated.  I felt that it would be wiser to refuse, but I was cold and wet, and the thought of my fireless room depressed me.  So I was ushered into the long low dining-room, with its old hunting prints and black oak furniture, and, best of all, with its huge log fire.  Mrs. Moyat greeted me with her usual negative courtesy.  I do not think that I was a favourite of hers, but whatever her welcome lacked in impressiveness Blanche’s made up for.  She kept looking at me as though anxious that I should remember our common secret.  More than once I was almost sorry that I had not let her speak.

“You’ve had swell callers again,” she remarked, as we sat side by side at supper-time.  “A carriage from Rowchester was outside your door when I passed.”

“Ah, he’s a good sort is the Duke,” Mr. Moyat declared appreciatively.  “A clever chap, too.  He’s A1 in politics, and a first-class business man, chairman of the great Southern Railway Company, and on the board of several other City companies.”

“I can’t see what the gentry want to meddle with such things at all for,” Mrs. Moyat said.  “There’s some as says as the Duke’s lost more than he can afford by speculations.”