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Uncle James ate an egg, with a pious air of thankfulness for the mercies vouchsafed him. "And where will you live now, Aunt Victoria?" he asked at last, with an affectation of as much concern as he could get into his fat voice. For many years he had insisted that Fairholm was the proper place for his mother's sister, but then she had had money to leave. "Do not desert us altogether," he pursued.
Beth had come in prepared to tell the whole exciting story, but this reception irritated her, and she answered her mother in exactly the same tone: "I've been at Fairholm." "What have you been doing there?" Mrs. Caldwell snapped. "Getting myself into a mess, as any one might see who looked at me," Beth rejoined. "I must go and change." "You can go to bed," said her mother.
It had been settled that in another week Eric was to go to school in the Isle of Roslyn. Mr. Williams had hired a small house in the town of Ellan, and intended to stay there for his year of furlough, at the end of which period Vernon was to be left at Fairholm, and Eric in the house of the head-master of the school.
She remembered that she had written an exquisitely pathetic letter to Fairholm "when the end came," as she expressed it; and she recalled queer scraps of the artist's talk about the danger of forming ties. "New ties," he would say, "mean new duties, and they hamper and clog the will." Ah yes, the will; he was always holding forth about that and here was the lecture finally exemplified!
For the first time since the conception of her scheme Lady Tamworth experienced a feeling of irresolution. With Fairholm in the flesh before her eyes, the task appeared difficult; its reality pressed in upon her, driving a breach through the flimsy wall of her fancies.
Scarcely were the tents pitched than Rupert heard himself heartily saluted, and looking round, saw his friends Lord Fairholm and Sir John Loveday, who being already in camp had at once sought him out. "By my faith, Master Holliday, the three months have done wonders for you; you look every inch a soldier," Lord Fairholm said.
But he had full confidence in his own powers, and made the strongest resolutions to work hard the next half-year, when he had got out of "that Gordon's" clutches. The Williams' spent the holidays at Fairholm, and now, indeed, in the prospect of losing them, Eric's feelings to his parents came out in all their strength. Most happily the days glided by, and the father and mother used them wisely.
It was like the rest of the mill, built of rough pine, black with age. It had evidently been used as a granary. "This is a nice trap we have fallen into, Hugh, and I doubt me if Lord Fairholm ever saw the letter with his name upon it which lured me here. However, that is not the question now; the thing is how we are to get out of the trap. How many were there outside, do you think?"
It doesn't seem to bode good. Of course you know what you're come for, sir; but I don't like the look of the place, nohow." "It does not look cheerful, Hugh; but I am to meet Lord Fairholm and Sir John Loveday here." "I don't see any sign of them, Master Rupert. I'd be careful if I were you, for it's just the sort of place for a foul deed to be done in. It does not look safe."
"But I meant the most important," he explained, smiling. "I don't know," she said. "Uncle James Patten thinks that next to himself the Benyons are. He married one of them. He's an awful snob." "And what is his position?" "I don't know he's a landowner; that's his estate over there," and she nodded towards Fairholm. "Indeed! How far does it extend?"
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