’Scarcely anything:  simply this.  When I have seen old Mr. Springrove, which I shall do in a day or two, and told him that he will be expected to rebuild the houses, do you see the young man.  See him yourself, in order that the proposals made may not appear to be anything more than an impulse of your own.  You or he will bring up the subject of the houses.  To rebuild them would be a matter of at least six hundred pounds, and he will almost surely say that we are hard in insisting upon the extreme letter of the leases.  Then tell him that scarcely can you yourself think of compelling an old tenant like his father to any such painful extreme—­there shall be no compulsion to build, simply a surrender of the leases.  Then speak feelingly of his cousin, as a woman whom you respect and love, and whose secret you have learnt to be that she is heart-sick with hope deferred.  Beg him to marry her, his betrothed and your friend, as some return for your consideration towards his father.  Don’t suggest too early a day for their marriage, or he will suspect you of some motive beyond womanly sympathy.  Coax him to make a promise to her that she shall be his wife at the end of a twelvemonth, and get him, on assenting to this, to write to Cytherea, entirely renouncing her.’

‘She has already asked him to do that.’

’So much the better—­and telling her, too, that he is about to fulfil his long-standing promise to marry his cousin.  If you think it worth while, you may say Cytherea was not indisposed to think of me before she knew I was married.  I have at home a note she wrote me the first evening I saw her, which looks rather warm, and which I could show you.  Trust me, he will give her up.  When he is married to Adelaide Hinton, Cytherea will be induced to marry me—­perhaps before; a woman’s pride is soon wounded.’

’And hadn’t I better write to Mr. Nyttleton, and inquire more particularly what’s the law upon the houses?’

’O no, there’s no hurry for that.  We know well enough how the case stands—­quite well enough to talk in general terms about it.  And I want the pressure to be put upon young Springrove before he goes away from home again.’

She looked at him furtively, long, and sadly, as after speaking he became lost in thought, his eyes listlessly tracing the pattern of the carpet.  ‘Yes, yes, she will be mine,’ he whispered, careless of Cytherea Aldclyffe’s presence.  At last he raised his eyes inquiringly.

‘I will do my best, AEneas,’ she answered.

Talibus incusat.  Manston then left the house, and again went towards the blackened ruins, where men were still raking and probing.

2.  FROM NOVEMBER THE TWENTY-NINTH TO DECEMBER THE SECOND

The smouldering remnants of the Three Tranters Inn seemed to promise that, even when the searchers should light upon the remains of the unfortunate Mrs. Manston, very little would be discoverable.