’What sum do you think would be required of me to put the houses in place again?’

‘I have roughly thought six or seven hundred pounds.’

‘If the letter of the law is to be acted up to,’ said the old man, with more agitation in his voice.

‘Yes, exactly.’

’Do you know enough of Miss Aldclyffe’s mind to give me an idea of how she means to treat me?’

’Well, I am afraid I must tell you that though I know very little of her mind as a rule, in this matter I believe she will be rather peremptory; she might share to the extent of a sixth or an eighth perhaps, in consideration of her getting new lamps for old, but I should hardly think more.’

The steward stepped upon the stile, and Mr. Springrove went along the road with a bowed head and heavy footsteps towards his niece’s cottage, in which, rather against the wish of Edward, they had temporarily taken refuge.

The additional weight of this knowledge soon made itself perceptible.  Though indoors with Edward or Adelaide nearly the whole of the afternoon, nothing more than monosyllabic replies could be drawn from him.  Edward continually discovered him looking fixedly at the wall or floor, quite unconscious of another’s presence.  At supper he ate just as usual, but quite mechanically, and with the same abstraction.

4.  DECEMBER THE THIRD

The next morning he was in no better spirits.  Afternoon came:  his son was alarmed, and managed to draw from him an account of the conversation with the steward.

‘Nonsense; he knows nothing about it,’ said Edward vehemently.  ’I’ll see Miss Aldclyffe myself.  Now promise me, father, that you’ll not believe till I come back, and tell you to believe it, that Miss Aldclyffe will do any such unjust thing.’

Edward started at once for Knapwater House.  He strode rapidly along the high-road, till he reached a wicket where a footpath allowed of a short cut to the mansion.  Here he leant down upon the bars for a few minutes, meditating as to the best manner of opening his speech, and surveying the scene before him in that absent mood which takes cognizance of little things without being conscious of them at the time, though they appear in the eye afterwards as vivid impressions.  It was a yellow, lustrous, late autumn day, one of those days of the quarter when morning and evening seem to meet together without the intervention of a noon.  The clear yellow sunlight had tempted forth Miss Aldclyffe herself, who was at this same time taking a walk in the direction of the village.  As Springrove lingered he heard behind the plantation a woman’s dress brushing along amid the prickly husks and leaves which had fallen into the path from the boughs of the chestnut trees.  In another minute she stood in front of him.

He answered her casual greeting respectfully, and was about to request a few minutes’ conversation with her, when she directly addressed him on the subject of the fire.  ’It is a sad misfortune for your father’ she said, ’and I hear that he has lately let his insurances expire?’