“I do not doubt that it’s all right”

“Yes, Mr. Morton—­it is all right.  It is quite right.  But your coming in this way is quite a compliment.  I am so proud to see the owner of Bragton once more in this house.  I respect the family as I always did; and as for the money—­”

“I am only sorry that it has been delayed so long.  Good morning, Mr. Masters.”

The attorney’s affairs were in such a condition that an unexpected cheque for 127l. 8s. 4d. sufficed to exhilarate him.  It was as though the money had come down to him from the very skies.  As it happened Mary returned from Cheltenham on that same evening and the attorney felt that if she had brought back with her an intention to be Mrs. Twentyman he could still be a happy and contented man.

And there had been another trouble on John Morton’s mind.  He had received his cousin’s card but had not returned the visit while his grandmother had been at Bragton.  Now he walked on to Hoppet Hall and knocked at the door.—­Yes;—­Mr. Morton was at home, and then he was shown into the presence of his cousin whom he had not seen since he was a boy.  “I ought to have come sooner,” said the Squire, who was hardly at his ease.

“I heard you had a house full of people at Bragton.”

“Just that,—­and then I went off rather suddenly to the other side of the country; and then I had to go up to London.  Now I’m going to Patagonia.”

“Patagonia!  That’s a long way off.”

“We Foreign Office slaves have to be sent a long way off.”

“But we heard, John,” said Reginald, who did not feel it to be his duty to stand on any ceremony with his younger cousin, “we heard that you were going to be married to Miss Trefoil.  Are you going to take a wife out to Patagonia?”

This was a question which he certainly had not expected.  “I don’t know how that may be,” he said frowning.

“We were told here in Dillsborough that it was all settled.  I hope I haven’t asked an improper question.”

“Of course people will talk.”

“If it’s only talk I beg pardon.  Whatever concerns Bragton is interesting to me, and from the way in which I heard this I thought it was a certainty.  Patagonia;—­well!  You don’t want an assistant private secretary I suppose?  I should like to see Patagonia.”

“We are not allowed to appoint those gentlemen ourselves.”

“And I suppose I should be too old to get in at the bottom.  It seems a long way off for a man who is the owner of Bragton.”

“It is a long way.”

“And what will you do with the old place?”

“There’s no one to live there.  If you were married you might perhaps take it” This was of course said in joke, as old Mrs. Morton would have thought Bragton to be disgraced for ever, even by such a proposition.

“You might let it.”