Tregear, when he received the note from Mrs Finn, was staying at the Duke’s house in Carlton Terrace.  Silverbridge was there, and, on leaving Matching, had asked the Duke’s permission to have his friend with him.  The Duke at that time was not well pleased with his son as to the matter of politics, and gave his son’s friend credit for the evil counsel which had produced his displeasure.  But still he had not refused his consent to this proposition.  Had he done so, Silverbridge would probably have gone elsewhere:  and though there was a matter in respect to Tregear of which the Duke disapproved, it was not a matter, as he thought, which would have justified him in expelling the young man from his house.  The young man was a strong Conservative; and now Silverbridge had declared his purpose of entering the House of Commons, if he did enter it, as one of the Conservative party.

This had been a terrible blow to the Duke; and he believed that it all came from the young Tregear.  Still he must do his duty, and not more than his duty.  He knew nothing against Tregear.  That a Tregear should be a Conservative was natural enough—­at any rate, was not disgraceful; that he should have his political creed sufficiently at heart to be able to persuade another man, was to his credit.  He was a gentleman, well educated, superior in many things to Silverbridge himself.  There were those who said that Silverbridge had redeemed himself from contempt—­from that sort of contempt which might be supposed to await a young nobleman who had painted scarlet the residence of the Head of his college—­by the fact of his having chosen such a friend.  The Duke was essentially a just man; and though, at the very moment in which the request was made, his heart was half crushed by his son’s apostasy, he gave the permission asked.

‘You know Mrs Finn,’ Tregear said to his friend one morning at breakfast.

’I remember her all my life.  She used to be a great deal with my grandfather.  I believe he left her a lot of diamonds and money, and that she wouldn’t have them.  I don’t know whether the diamonds are not locked up somewhere now, so that she can take them when she pleases.’

‘What a singular woman!’

’It was odd; but she had some fad about it.  What makes you ask about Mrs Finn?’

‘She wants me to go and see her.’

‘What about?’

’I think I have heard your mother speak of her as though she loved her dearly,’ said Tregear.

’I don’t know about loving her dearly.  They were intimate, and Mrs Finn used to be with her very much when she was in the country.  She was at Matching just now, when my poor mother died.  Why does she want to see you?’

‘She has written to me from Matching.  She wants to see me-’

‘Well?’

’To tell you the truth.  I do not know what she has to say to me; though I can guess.’

‘What do you guess?’

‘It is something about your sister.’