“Very likely,” agreed Mr Oversley sagely. “Seems to me that most of those fellows were regular thatchgallows. Well, only think of the Oversley who made our fortunes! When he wasn’t playing least in sight he was pretty well swimming in lard, wasn’t he, Papa?”

“Alas, too true!” said his father, twinkling.

“Oh, don’t talk so, don’t talk so!” Julia broke in. “How can you turn everything to jest? Adam, you didn’t mean it! Strangers at Fontley? Oh, no! Every feeling revolts! The groves and the alleys! The Chapel ruins where I’ve so often sat, feeling the past all about me, so close that I could almost fancy myself a part of it, and see the ghosts of those dead Deverils who lived there!” She paused, looking from one to the other, and cried passionately: “Ah, you don’t understand! Not even you, Adam! How is it possible? Charlie doesn’t, I know, but you — ?”

“I should rather think I don’t!” said her brother. “If you ever saw a ghost you’d run screeching for your life! What’s more, I remember those ruins quite as well as you do, and very likely better! Whenever we stayed at Fontley we used to play at hide-and-seek amongst ’em, and capital sport it was!”

“There were other days,” Julia said, in a low tone. “You choose to pretend that you don’t care, Adam, but I know you too well to be hoaxed! You were used to partake of all my sentiments: this reserve has been forced on you by Papa!”

Adam replied steadily: “I do care. It would be absurd to pretend that I didn’t. If I seem to you reserved it’s because I care too much to talk about it.”

She said, with quick sympathy: “Oh, how horrid I am! How stupid! I understand you — of course I understand you! We won’t speak of it, or even think of it! As for repining, I shan’t do so, I promise you! Could you be happy in a cottage? I could! How often I have longed to live in one — with white walls, and a thatched roof, and a neat little garden! Well have a cow, and I’ll learn to milk, and make butter and cheese. And some hens, and a bee-hive, and some pigs. Why, with these, and our books, and a pianoforte, we shall be as rich as nabobs, and want nothing to complete our felicity!”

“Oh, won’t you?” struck in her unappreciative brother. “Well, if you mean to cook the meals Lynton will precious soon want something more! And who’s to kill the pigs, and muck out the henhouse?”

This sardonic interpolation went unheeded. Julia was rapt in contemplation of the picture she had conjured up; and Adam, tenderly amused though he was, felt too deeply moved to laugh. He could only shake his head; and it was left to Lord Oversley to bring his daughter down to earth, which he did, by saying briskly: “Very pretty, my dear, but quite impractical. I hope Adam can find something better to do than to keep pigs. Indeed, I have no doubt he will, and all the more easily without encumbrance! No one is more sorry than I am that things have turned out as they have, but you must be a good girl, and understand that marriage is out of the question. Adam feels this as strongly as I do, so you need not think me a tyrant, puss!”

She listened with whitening cheeks, and turned her eyes imploringly towards Adam. She read the answer in his face, and burst into tears.

“Julia! Oh, don’t, my darling, don’t!” he begged.

She sank into a chair, burying her face in her hands, her slender form convulsed by deep sobs. Fortunately, since neither her father nor her brother showed the smallest ability to contend with such a situation, Lady Oversley at that moment came into the room.

A very pretty woman, plumper than her daughter, but with the same large blue eyes, and sensitive mouth, she exclaimed distressfully, and hurried forward. “Oh, dear, oh, dear! No, no, my love! Adam, dear boy! Oh, you poor children! There, there, Julia! Now, hush, my dearest! You mustn’t cry so: you will make yourself quite ill, and think how painful for poor Adam! Oh, dear, I had no notion you had come in from your ride! Oversley, how could you? You must have been perfectly brutal to her!”

“If it is brutal to tell her that she can’t live in a thatched cottage, rearing hens and pigs, I have certainly been brutal, and Adam too!” retorted Oversley, with some acerbity.

Lady Oversley, having removed Julia’s hat, had clasped her in her arms, and was tenderly wiping the tears from her face, but she looked up at this, and exclaimed: “Live in a cottage? Oh, no, dearest, you would be very ill-advised to do that! Particularly a thatched one, for I believe thatch harbours rats, though nothing, of course, is more picturesque and I perfectly understand why you should have a fancy for it! But you would find it sadly uncomfortable: it wouldn’t do for you at all, or for Adam either, I daresay, for you have both of you been accustomed to live in such a very different style. And as for hens, I would not on any account rear such dispiriting birds! You know how it is whenever an extra number of eggs is needed in the kitchen: the hen-woman is never able to supply them, and always says if s because the creatures are broody. Yes, and then they make sad noises, which you, my love, with your exquisite sensibility, would find quite insupportable. And pigs,” concluded her ladyship, with a shudder, “have a most unpleasant odour!”

Julia, tearing herself out of that soft embrace, started to her feet, dashing a hand across her eyes. Addressing herself to Adam, standing rigid behind a chair, his hands gripping its back, she said in a voice choked by sobs: “I could have borne any privation — any discomfort! Remember it!” She laughed hysterically, and hurried to the door. Looking back, as she opened it, she added: “My courage did not fail! Remember that too!”

“Well, of all the shabby things to have said!” ejaculated Mr Oversley, as the door slammed behind his sister.

“Hush, Charlie!” commanded his mama. She went to Adam, and warmly embraced him. “Dear boy, you have done just as you ought — just as we knew you would! My heart aches for you! But don’t despair! I am persuaded you will come about! Recollect what the poet says! I’m not sure which poet, but very likely it was Shakespeare, because it generally is, though why I can’t imagine!”

With these obscure but encouraging words she departed, pausing only to recommend Mr Oversley to follow her example. Only too thankful to escape from this painful scene, Mr Oversley took leave of Adam. When he had gone, Adam said: “I think, sir, that I’ll take myself off too.”

“Yes, in a minute!” Oversley said. “Adam — what you said to Julia — Fontley — You are not serious? Things are not as bad as that?”

“I was quite serious, sir.”

“Good God! But you must have ten or twelve thousand acres of good land!”

“Yes, sir. Much of it encumbered, and all of it so neglected that the rent-roll has dwindled to little more than a thousand pounds a year. It could be ten times as much if I had the means — ” He stopped. “Well, I haven’t the means, and I can only hope that someone more fortunately circumstanced will perceive how easily farms worth no more than twelve shillings an acre might be valued, five years from now perhaps, at four times that sum. I think we must be fifty years behind the times at Fontley.”

Hardly heeding him, Oversley exclaimed: “Adam, this must not be! Yes, yes, I know! You’re saddled with short tenancies — no proper covenants — open fields — too much flax and mustard being grown — bad drainage — But these ills can be remedied!”

“Not by me,” Adam replied. “If I had twenty — fifteen — even ten thousand pounds at my disposal I think there is a great deal I could do — supposing that I were free of debt, which, unhappily, I am not.”

Looking very much shocked, Oversley began to pace up and down the room. “I hadn’t thought — Good God, what can have possessed — Well, never mind that! Something must be done! Sell Fontley! And what then? Oh, yes, yes! You’ll rid yourself of debt, provide for your sisters, but what of yourself? Have you considered that, boy?”

“I daresay I shan’t find myself quite destitute, sir. And if I do — why, I shan’t be the first officer to live on his pay! I haven’t sold out, you know. As soon as I’ve settled my affairs — ”

“Nonsense!” interjected Oversley. “Don’t stand there talking as though selling your birthplace was no more to you than disposing of a horse whose action you don’t like!” He resumed his pacing, his brow furrowed. After a few moments, he said over his shoulder: “Julia’s not the wife for you, you know. You don’t think it now, but you’ll live to be glad of this day’s work.” Receiving no answer to this, he repeated: “Something must be done! I don’t scruple to tell you, Adam, that I think it your duty to save Fontley, whatever it may cost you to do it.”

“If I knew how it might be done I don’t think I should count the cost,” Adam said, a little wearily. “Unfortunately, I don’t know. Don’t tease yourself over my affairs, sir! I shall come about. I’ll take my leave of you now.”

“Wait!” said Oversley, emerging briefly from deep cogitations.

Adam resigned himself. Silence reigned, while his lordship stood frowning at the carpet. After a long pause he looked up, and said: “I think I may be able to help you. Oh, don’t stiffen up! I’m not offering to frank you, my dear boy! The lord knows I would if I could, but it’s all I can do to keep myself above hatches. This curst war! Ay, and if Boney is beaten before the year’s out — did you see that Bordeaux has declared for the Bourbons? The latest on-dit is that there’s a deputation coming to invite Louis to go back to France. I have it on pretty good authority that they are expecting it, at Hartwell. I don’t know how it will answer, and in any event they don’t look for any sudden prosperity in the City, whatever be the outcome. Well, that’s for tomorrow, and not what I had in mind to say to you. It occurs to me — ” He paused, and shook his head. “No, better I shouldn’t disclose to you — I don’t suppose for a moment you’d like it, and I’m not even sure that — Still, it might be worth while to throw out a feeler!” He looked undecidedly at Adam. “Not going back to Fontley immediately, are you? Where are you staying?”