“No,” he said at length, “nothing is there which will be admitted, but enough to damn him if you yourself might be a witness.  I will give you the law, briefly:  descendible estates among us are of two kinds, estates in fee simple and estates in fee tail.  Had your grandfather died without a will, his estate, which we suppose to be in fee simple, would have descended to you as the son of his eldest son, according to the fourth of the canons of descent in Blackstone.  But with us fee simple estates are devisable, and Mr. Carvel was wholly within his right in cutting off the line of his eldest son.  Do you follow me?”

I nodded.

“There is one chance,” he continued, “and that is a very slim one.  I said that Mr. Carvel’s estate was supposed to be in fee simple.  Estates tail are not devisable.  Our system of registration is far from infallible, and sometimes an old family settlement turns up to prove that a property which has been willed out of the direct line, as in fee simple, is in reality entailed.  Is there a possibility of any such document?”

I replied that I did not know.  My grandfather had never brought up the subject.

“We must bend our efforts in that direction,” said the barrister.  “I shall have my clerks make a systematic search.”

He ceased talking, and sat sipping his sangaree in the abstracted manner common to him.  I took the opportunity to ask about his family, thinking about what Dolly had said of Patty’s illness.

“The mother is as well as can be expected, Richard, and Patty very rosy with the country air.  Your disappearance was a great shock to them both.”

“And Tom?”

He went behind his reserve.  “Tom is a d—­d rake,” he exclaimed, with some vehemence.  “I have given him over.  He has taken up with that macaroni Courtenay, who wins his money,—­or rather my money,—­and your cousin Philip, when he is home from King’s College.  How Tom can be son of mine is beyond me, in faith.  I see him about once in two months, when he comes here with a bill for his satins and his ruffles, and along face of repentance, and a lot of gaming debts to involve my honour.  And that reminds me, Richard,” said he, looking straight at me with his clear, dark eyes:  “have you made any plans for your future?”

I ventured to ask his advice as to entering the law.

“As the only profession open to a gentleman,” he replied, smiling a little.  “No, you were no more cut out for an attorney, or a barrister, or a judge, than was I for a macaroni doctor.  The time is not far away, my lad,” he went on, seeing my shame and confusion, “when an American may amass money in any way he chooses, and still be a gentleman, behind a counter, if he will.”

“I do not fear work, Mr. Swain,” I remarked, with some pride.

“That is what I have been thinking,” he said shortly.  “And I am not a man to make up my mind while you count three, Richard.  I have the place in Talbot, and no one to look after it.  And—­and in short I think you are the man.”