“I see.”

“Mr. Smith has been buying a goodish bit of ground here.  They tell me he’s about purchasing Elba.  He has bought the Crouch.  He and Mr. Tinman are always out together.  They’re over at Helmstone now.  They’ve been to London.”

“Are they likely to be back to-day?”

“Certain, I should think.  Mr. Tinman has to be in London to-morrow.”

Crickledon looked.  He was not the man to look artful, but there was a lighted corner in his look that revived Fellingham’s recollections, and the latter burst out: 

“The Address?  I ’d half forgotten it.  That’s not over yet?  Has he been practicing much?”

“No more glasses ha’ been broken.”

“And how is your wife, Crickledon?”

“She’s at home, sir, ready for a talk, if you’ve a mind to try her.”

Mrs. Crickledon proved to be very ready.  “That Tinman,” was her theme.  He had taken away her lodgers, and she knew his objects.  Mr. Smith repented of leaving her, she knew, though he dared not say it in plain words.  She knew Miss Smith was tired to death of constant companionship with Mrs. Cavely, Tinman’s sister.  She generally came once in the day just to escape from Mrs. Cavely, who would not, bless you! step into a cottager’s house where she was not allowed to patronize.  Fortunately Miss Smith had induced her father to get his own wine from the merchants.

“A happy resolution,” said Fellingham; “and a saving one.”

He heard further that Mr. Smith would take possession of the Crouch next month, and that Mrs. Cavely hung over Miss Smith like a kite.

“And that old Tinman, old enough to be her father!” said Mrs. Crickledon.

She dealt in the flashes which connect ideas.  Fellingham, though a man, and an Englishman, was nervously wakeful enough to see the connection.

“They’ll have to consult the young lady first, ma’am.”

“If it’s her father’s nod she’ll bow to it; now mark me,” Mrs. Crickledon said, with emphasis.  “She’s a young lady who thinks for herself, but she takes her start from her father where it’s feeling.  And he’s gone stone-blind over that Tinman.”

While they were speaking, Annette appeared.

“I saw you,” she said to Fellingham; gladly and openly, in the most commonplace manner.

“Are you going to give me a walk along the beach?” said he.

She proposed the country behind the town, and that was quite as much to his taste.  But it was not a happy walk.  He had decided that he admired her, and the notion of having Tinman for a rival annoyed him.  He overflowed with ridicule of Tinman, and this was distressing to Annette, because not only did she see that he would not control himself before her father, but he kindled her own satirical spirit in opposition to her father’s friendly sentiments toward his old schoolmate.

“Mr. Tinman has been extremely hospitable to us,” she said, a little coldly.