"I think it is, sir-at least to me, and I am quite prepared to pay that amount for it."

"I only gave nine fifty for it; and I thought that if I could get a clear thousand I should have every reason to be perfectly satisfied.” "I have made you an offer, sir. It is for you to say whether you are willing to accept it."

"Seeing that you offer me two hundred pounds more than I ever hoped to get, I'm not such an ass as to say, No. Only I think you are robbing yourself. I do indeed, Bristow; and that's what I don't like

"I think, sir, that I'm pretty well able to look after my own interests," said Tom, with a meaning smile. "Am I to consider that Knockley Holt is to become my property?"

"Of course you are, boy-of course you are. But I must say that you are a little bit of a simpleton to give me twelve hundred when you might have it for a thousand."

"An offer's an offer, and I'll abide by mine."

"Then there's nothing more to be said: I'll see my lawyer about the deeds to-morrow."

Tom shook hands with the Squire, and went in search of Jane.

66

Perhaps I may come in now," said Mrs. McDermot five minutes later, as she opened the door of her brother's room.

66

"Of course you may," said the Squire. Young Bristow and I were talking over some business affairs before, that would have had no interest for you and that you know nothing about."

"It's about young Bristow, as you call him, that I have come to see you this morning."

"Oh, indeed," said the Squire drily. Then he took off his spectacles and rubbed them with his pocket handkerchief, and began to whistle a tune under his breath.

Mrs. McDermot glared fiercely at him, and her voice took an added tone of asperity when she spoke again. I suppose you are aware that your protégé is making violent love to your daughter, or else that your daughter is making violent love to him: I hardly know which it is !" "What!" thundered the Squire, as he started to his feet.

that you say, Fanny McDermot?"

"What is

"Simply this: there is a lot of love-making going on between Jane and Mr. Bristow. If it is done with your sanction, I have not another word to say. But if you tell me that you know nothing about it, I can only say that you must have been as blind as a bat and as stupid as an owl."

"Thank you, Fanny-thank you," said the Squire sadly, as he sat down in his chair again. "I daresay I have been both blind and stupid; and if what you tell me is true, I must have been."

"Miss Jane couldn't long deceive me," said the widow spitefully.

"Miss Jane is too good a girl to deceive anybody."

“Oh, in love matters we women hold that everything is fair. Deceit then becomes deceit no longer. We call it by a prettier name."

Her brother was not heeding her: he was lost in his own thoughts. "The young vagabond!" he said at last. "So that's the way he's been hoodwinking me, is it? But I'll teach him: I'll have him know that I'm not to be made a fool of in that way. Make love to my daughter, indeed! I'll have him here to-morrow morning, and tell him a bit of my mind that will astonish him considerably."

"Why wait till to-morrow? Why not send for him now ?"

"Because he left here half an hour ago."

"Oh, you would not have far to send for him."

"What do you mean?"

"Simply that he and Jane are in the shrubbery together at the present moment."

The Squire stared at her helplessly for a moment or two. "How do you know that?" he said at last, speaking very quietly.

"Because my maid, who was returning from an errand, saw them walking there, arm in arm.” She paused, as if expecting her brother to say something, but he did not speak. "I have not had my eyes shut, I assure you," she went on. "But in these matters women are always more quick-sighted than men. From the very first hour of my seeing them together I had my suspicions. All their walking and talking together couldn't be for nothing. All their hand shakings and sly glances into each others' eyes couldn't be without a meaning."

The Squire got up from his chair and rang the bell. A servant came in. "Ascertain whether Mr. Bristow is anywhere about the house or grounds; and if he is, tell him that I should like to see him before he goes."

Mrs. McDermot rose in some alarm. It was no part of her policy to be seen there by Tom. "I am glad you have sent for him," she said. "I hope matters have not gone too far to be stopped without difficulty."

He looked up in a little surprise. "There will be no difficulty. Why should there be?" he said.

"No, of course not. As you say, Why should there be? But I must now bid you good morning for the present. There will be hardly any need, I think, for you to mention my name in the affair."

"There will be no need to mention anybody's name. Good morning."

Mrs. McDermot went out and shut the door gently behind her. "Breaking fast, poor man," she said to herself. "He's not long for this world, I'm afraid. Well, I've the consolation of knowing that I've always done a sister's duty by him. I wonder what he'll die worth. Thousands, no doubt; and all to go to that proud minx of a Jane. We

are not allowed to hate one another, or else I'm afraid I should hate

that girl."

She shook her fist at an imaginary Jane, went straight up stairs, and gave her maid a good blowing-up.

Some three weeks had now come and gone since Tom, breaking for once through the restraint which had hitherto kept him back, did and said something which made Jane very happy. What he did was to draw her face down to his and kiss it: what he said was simply, "Good night, my darling." Nothing more, but quite enough to be understood by her to whom the words were spoken. But since that evening not one syllable more of love had been breathed by Tom. For anything that had since passed between them Jane might have imagined that she had merely dreamt the words-that the speaking of them was nothing more than a fancy of her own love-sick brain.

Under similar circumstances many young ladies would have considered themselves aggrieved, and would not have been deemed unreasonable in so thinking. But Jane had no intention whatever of adopting an injured tone even in her own inmost thoughts. She had never been in the habit of looking upon herself in the light of a victim, and she had no intention of beginning to do so now. Surprised-slightly surprised-she might be, but that was all. In Tom's manner towards her, in the way he looked at her, there was that indescribable something which gave her the sweet assurance that she was still loved as much as ever. Such being the case, she was well satisfied to wait. She felt that her lover's silence had a meaning, that he was not dumb without a reason. When the proper time should come he would speak, and to some purpose. Till then Eros should keep a finger on his lips, and speak only the language of the eyes.

"So this is the way you treat me, is it, young man ?" said the Squire sternly, as Tom re-entered the room.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Tom, looking at him in sheer amaze

ment.

"Oh, don't pretend that you don't know what I mean."

"It may seem stupid on my part, but I must really plead ignorance."

"You worm yourself into my confidence till you get the run of the house, and can come and go as you like, and you finish up by making love to my daughter!"

"It is no crime to love Miss Culpepper, I hope, sir. There are few people, I imagine, who could know her without loving her." "That's all very well, but you don't get over me in that way, young What right have you to make love to my daughter? That's what I want to know."

sir.

"I may love Miss Culpepper, but I have never told her so." "Do you mean to say that you have never asked her to marry you?"

"Never, sir; on that point I give you my word of honour."

"A good thing for you that you haven't. The sooner you get that love tom-foolery out of your head the better."

"I promise you one thing, sir," said Tom; "if I ever do marry Miss Culpepper, it shall be with your full consent and good wishes." The Squire could not help chuckling. "In that case, my boy, you will never have her—not if you live to be as old as Methuselah." "Time will prove, sir."

"And look ye here. There must be no more walks in the shrubbery, no more gallivanting together among the woods. Do you under

stand ?"

"Perfectly, sir. Your words could not be plainer."

"I mean them to be plain. There seems to be no harm done so far, but it's time this nonsense was put a stop to. Miss Culpepper must marry in a very different sphere from yours."

"Pardon the remark, sir, but you were quite willing to take Mr. Edward Cope as your son-in-law. Now, I consider myself quite as good a man as Mr. Cope-quite as eligible a suitor for your daughter's hand."

"Then I don't. Besides, young Cope would never have had the chance of getting her if he hadn't been the son of my oldest friend : the son of the man to whose bravery I owe my life itself. Master Edward owes it to his father and not to himself that I ever sanctioned his engagement to Miss Culpepper."

"I am indebted for this good turn to Mrs. McDermot," said Tom to himself, as he walked homeward through the park. "It will only have the effect of bringing matters to a climax a little earlier than I intended, but it will not alter my plans in the least.”

"Fanny has been exaggerating as usual," was the Squire's comment. "There was something in it, no doubt, and it's just as well to have crushed it in the bud; but I think it hardly worth while to say anything to Jenny about it."

A week later, the Squire happened to be riding on his white pony along the high road that fringed one side of Knockley Holt, when, to his intense astonishment, he heard the regular monotonous puffing and saw the smoke of a steam engine that was apparently hard at work behind a clump of larches in the distance. Riding up to the spot, he found some score or so of men all busily engaged. They were excavating a hole in the hill-side, filling-in stout timber supports as they got deeper down; the engine on the top being employed to hoist up the earth in big bucketfuls as fast as it was dug out.

"What's all this about?" inquired the Squire of one of the men; "and who's gaffer here?"

"Mr. Bristow, he be the gaffer, sur, and this hole be dug by his orders."

"Oh, ho! that's it, is it? the hole, and what do you bottom ?"

And how deep are you going to dig expect to find when you get to the

"I don't rightly know, sur, but I should think we be digging for water."

"A likely tale that! What the dickens should anybody want water for when we haven't had a dry day for seven weeks?"

"Our foreman did say, sur, as how Mr. Bristow was going to have a hole dug clean through, so as to make a short cut like to the other side of the world. Anyhow, it be mortal dry work."

The Squire gave a grunt of dissatisfaction, and rode off. "What queer crotchet has that young jackanapes got into his head now?" he muttered to himself. "It's just possible, though, that there may be a method in his madness."

CHAPTER XXXII.

AT THE THREE CROWNS HOTEL.

"HI! Jean, whose is this luggage?" cried Pierre Janvard one morning to his head waiter. He pointed at the same time to a large portmanteau which lay among a pile of other luggage in the hall of the Three Crowns Hotel, Bath.

With that restless curiosity which was such a marked trait in his character, Janvard had a habit of peering about among the luggage of his guests, and even of prying stealthily about their bedrooms when he knew that their occupants were out of the way, and he himself safe from detection. It was not that he hoped to benefit himself in any way, or even to pick up any information that would be of value to him, by such a mode of proceeding; but it had been a habit with him from boyhood to do this kind of thing, and it was a habit that he could by no means

overcome.

Passing through the hall this morning his eye had been attracted by a pile of luggage belonging to several fresh arrivals, and he at once began to peer among the labels. The second label that took his eye was inscribed, "Richard Dering, Esq., Passenger to Bath." Janvard stood aghast as he read the name. A crowd of direful memories rushed to his mind. For a moment or two he could not speak. Then he called Jean as above.

"That portmanteau," answered Jean, "belongs to a gentleman who came in by the last train. He and another gentleman came together. They wanted a private sitting-room and I put them into number twenty-nine."

"Has the other gentleman any luggage?"

"Yes, this large black bag belongs to him."

Janvard stooped and read: "Tom Bristow, Esq., Passenger to Bath."