“Are n’t your properties to be equal to one?” said Mrs. Cavely, smiling mother—­like from Tinman to Annette.

He sought to produce a fondling eye in a wry face, and said, “Yes, I will remember that.”

“Annette will bless you with her dear hand in a month or two at the outside,” Mrs. Cavely murmured, cherishingly.

“She will?” Tinman cracked his body to bend to her.

“Oh, I cannot say; do not distress me.  Be friendly with papa,” the girl resumed, moving to escape.

“That is the essential,” said Mrs. Cavely; and continued, when Annette had gone, “The essential is to get over the next few months, miss, and then to snap your fingers at us.  Martin, I would force that man to sell you Belle Vue under the price he paid for it, just to try your power.”

Tinman was not quite so forcible.  He obtained Belle Vue at auction price, and his passion for revenge was tipped with fire by having it accorded as a friend’s favour.

The poisoned state of his mind was increased by a December high wind that rattled his casements, and warned him of his accession of property exposed to the elements.  Both he and his sister attributed their nervousness to the sinister behaviour of Van Diemen.  For the house on the beach had only, in most distant times, been threatened by the sea, and no house on earth was better protected from man,—­Neptune, in the shape of a coastguard, being paid by Government to patrol about it during the hours of darkness.  They had never had any fears before Van Diemen arrived, and caused them to give thrice their ordinary number of dinners to guests per annum.  In fact, before Van Diemen came, the house on the beach looked on Crikswich without a rival to challenge its anticipated lordship over the place, and for some inexplicable reason it seemed to its inhabitants to have been a safer as well as a happier residence.

They were consoled by Tinman’s performance of a clever stroke in privately purchasing the cottages west of the town, and including Crickledon’s shop, abutting on Marine Parade.  Then from the house on the beach they looked at an entire frontage of their property.

They entered the month of February.  No further time was to be lost, “or we shall wake up to find that man has fooled us,” Mrs. Cavely said.  Tinman appeared at Elba to demand a private interview with Annette.  His hat was blown into the hall as the door opened to him, and he himself was glad to be sheltered by the door, so violent was the gale.  Annette and her father were sitting together.  They kept the betrothed gentleman waiting a very long time.  At last Van Diemen went to him, and said, “Netty ’ll see you, if you must.  I suppose you have no business with me?”

“Not to-day,” Tinman replied.