Lashmar wore the Toplady smile.

“It never occurred to our friend,” he said, “that her niece might undertake the great trust instead of you?”

“She has spoken to me quite frankly about that.  The trust cannot be so great as it would have been, but it remains with me.  Miss Tomalin, it ’nay be hoped, will play not quite an ordinary part in the fashionable world; she has ideas of her own, and”—­the voice was modulated—­“some faith in herself.  But my position is different, and perhaps my mind.  Lady Ogram assures me that her faith in me, and her hopes, have suffered no change.  For one thing, the mill is to become my property.  Then—­”

She hesitated, and her eyes passed over the listener’s face.  Lashmar was very attentive.

“There’s no need to go into details,” she added quickly.  “Lady Ogram told me everything, saying she felt that the time had come for doing so.  And I accepted the trust.”

“Without knowing, however,” said Dyce, “the not unimportant condition which her mind attached to it.”

“There was no condition, expressed or reserved.”

Constance’s tone had become hard again.  Her eyes were averted, her lips set in their firmest lines.

“Are you quite sure of that?”

“Quite,” was the decisive reply.

“How do you reconcile that with what has passed today between Lady Ogram and me?”

“It was between Lady Ogram and you,” said Constance, subduing her voice.

“I see.  You mean that I alone am concerned; that your position will in no case be affected?”

“Yes, I mean that,” answered Constance, quietly.

Lashmar thought for a moment, then moved on his chair, and spoke in a low tone, which seemed addressed to his hearer’s sympathy.

“Perhaps you are right.  Probably you are.  But there is one thing of which I feel every assurance.  If it becomes plain that her project must come to nothing, Lady Ogram’s interest in me is at an end.  I may say good-bye to Hollingford.”

“You are mistaken,” replied Constance, in a voice almost of indifference.

“Well, the question will soon be decided.”  Lashmar seemed to submit himself to the inevitable.  “I shall write to Lady Ogram, telling her the result of our conversation.  We shall see how she takes it.”

He moved as if about to rise, but only turned his chair slightly aside.  Constance was regarding him from under her brows.  She spoke in her most businesslike tone.

“It was this that you came to tell me?”

“Why, no.  It wasn’t that at all.”

“What had you in mind, then?”