Mrs. Waltham issued from the house, and explanations were again demanded.

‘Could you give baby to the nurse for a few minutes?’ Adela asked Letty.  ‘I should like to speak to you and mother quietly.’

The arrangement was effected and all three went into the sitting-room.  There Adela explained in simple words all that had come to pass; emotionless herself, but the cause of utter dismay in her hearers.  When she ceased there was blank silence.

Mrs. Waltham was the first to find her voice.

’But surely Mr. Eldon won’t take everything from you?  I don’t think he has the power to—­it wouldn’t be just; there must be surely some kind of provision in the law for such a thing.  What did Mr. Yottle say?’

‘Only that Mr. Eldon could recover the whole estate.’

‘The estate!’ exclaimed Mrs. Waltham eagerly.  ‘But not the money?’

Adela smiled.

‘The estate includes the money, mother.  It means everything.’

‘Oh, Adela!’ sighed Letty, who sat with her hands on her lap, bewildered.

‘But surely not Mrs. Rodman’s settlement?’ cried the elder lady, who was rapidly surveying the whole situation.

‘Everything,’ affirmed Adela.

’But what an extraordinary, what an unheard-of thing!  Such injustice I never knew!  Oh, but Mr. Eldon is a gentleman—­he can never exact his legal rights to the full extent.  He has too much delicacy of feeling for that.’  Adela glanced at her mother with a curious openness of look—­the expression which by apparent negation of feeling reveals feeling of special significance.  Mrs. Waltham caught the glance and checked her flow of speech.

‘Oh, he could never do that!’ she murmured the next moment, in a lower key, clasping her hands together upon her knees.  ’I am sure he wouldn’t.’

‘You must remember, mother,’ remarked Adela with reserve, ’that Mr. Eldon’s disposition cannot affect us.’

’My dear child, what I meant was this:  it is impossible for him to go to law with your husband to recover the uttermost farthing.  How are you to restore money that is long since spent? and it isn’t as if it had been spent in the ordinary way—­it has been devoted to public purposes.  Mr. Eldon will of course take all these things into consideration.  And really one must say that it is very strange for a wealthy man to leave his property entirely to strangers.’

‘Not entirely,’ put in Adela rather absently.

‘A hundred and seven pounds a year!’ exclaimed her mother protestingly.  ’My dear love, what can be done with such a paltry sum as that!’

’We must do a good deal with it, dear mother.  It will be all we have to depend upon until Richard finds—­finds some position.’

‘But you are not going to leave the Manor at once?’

’As soon as ever we can.  I don’t know what arrangement my husband is making.  We shall see Mr. Yottle again to-morrow.’