‘I was not thinking about the funeral,’ said Belton.  ’You’ll only find yourself uncomfortable there.’

‘Of course I shall be uncomfortable.’

‘You can’t do anything about the property, you know.’

‘What do you mean by doing anything?’ said Belton, in an angry tone.

’You can’t very well take possession of the place, at any rate, till after the funeral.  It would not be considered the proper thing to do.’

’You think, then, that I’m a bird of prey, smelling the feast from afar off, and hurrying at the dead man’s carcase as soon as the breath is out of his body?’

‘I don’t think anything of the kind, my dear fellow.’

’Yes, you do, or you wouldn’t talk to me about doing the proper thing!  I don’t care a straw about the proper thing!  If I find that there’s anything to be done tomorrow that can be of any use, I shall do it, though all Somersetshire should think it improper!  But I’m not going to look after my own interests!’

’Take off your coat and sit down, Will, and don’t look angry at me.  I know that you’re not greedy, well enough.  Tell me what you are going to do, and let me see if I can help you.’

Belton did as he was told; he pulled off his coat and sat himself down by the fire.  ’I don’t know that you can do anything to help me at least, not as yet.  But I must go and see after her.  Perhaps she may be all alone.’

‘I suppose she is all alone.’

‘He hasn’t gone down, then?’

’Who Captain Aylmer?  No he hasn’t gone down, certainly.  He is in Yorkshire.’

‘I’m glad of that!’

’He won’t hurry himself.  He never does, I fancy.  I had a letter from him this morning about Miss Amedroz.’

‘And what did he say?’

’He desired me to send her seventy-five pounds the interest of her aunt’s money.’

‘Seventy-five pounds!’ said Will Belton, contemptuously.

’He thought she might want money at once; and I sent her the cheque today.  It will go down by the same train that carries you.’

‘Seventy-five pounds!  And you are sure that he has not gone himself?’

’It isn’t likely that he should have written to me, and passed through London himself, at the same time but it is possible, no doubt.  I don’t think he even knew the old squire; and there is no reason why he should go to the funeral.’

‘No reason at all,’ said Belton who felt that Captain Aylmer’s presence at the Castle would be an insult to himself.  ’I don’t know what on earth he should do there except that I think him just the fellow to intrude where he is not wanted.’  And yet Will was in his heart despising Captain Aylmer because he had not already hurried down to the assistance of the girl whom he professed to love.

‘He is engaged to her, you know,’ said the lawyer, in a low voice.

’What difference does that make with such a fellow as he is a cold-blooded fish of a man, who thinks of nothing in the world but being respectable?  Engaged to her!  Oh, damn him!’