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Updated: June 10, 2025
Tom bustled off, wondering what Mr Ratman could see in the pictures to allure him from the joys of football. To tell the truth, Mr Ratman was not a great artist. But the portrait of the lost Roger appeared to interest him, as did also the sight of an open letter, hastily laid down by the owner on the writing-table.
In the sad confusion which followed upon Mrs Ingleton's sudden death, no one appeared to remark the abrupt departure of Mr Robert Ratman. Roger certainly never bestowed a thought on the occurrence, and if any of the other members of the household thought twice about it, they all even Jill kept their ideas on the subject to themselves.
It rather called to mind a good many unpleasant reflections, the chief of which was that Mr Ratman would find matters no further advanced as regarded the widow, the heir, or the tutor. The only comfort was that he could hardly make himself disagreeable about the bill. The coachman was sent down with the dogcart; but if Mr Ratman expected any further demonstration of welcome, he was disappointed.
If he could but postpone his majority another year! Then came the miserable doubt about Ratman. If, after all, his unlikely, discredited story should prove to have a grain of truth at the bottom of it! But he dismissed the doubt for the hope. "Armstrong, I must go to town to find out about the `Cyclops. Come with me, there's a good fellow. In three weeks it will be too late."
Now, however, these bright hopes were dashed, and to the captain's mind he owed his failure, first and last, to Mr Frank Armstrong. Had he not come home, he said to himself, Rosalind would have yielded. With him still at Maxfield everything came to a dead lock. Ratman could not be propitiated, still less satisfied. The accounts would be restlessly scrutinised.
Roger had already written a letter to Ratman, addressed to that gentleman at the General Post Office, London. "Your letter," it said, "has perplexed me greatly. If you are my brother, as you say you are, why do you not give some proof? That should be easy. There must be some people who can identify you, or some means of satisfying us all about your claim to be the elder son.
"Just so; that's where you died, is it not? You stayed in London long enough to go to the dogs, I understood you to say?" "That didn't take long. I spent all my money in six months, and then enlisted," said Ratman, feeling fairly launched by this time. "Quite so. And you died, I believe, in India?" "I was supposed to have died in a skirmish; and they sent news home that I had.
Rosalind claimed his help on behalf of her father; and the possibility that any day Mr Ratman might turn up and court exposure decided the tutor to remain where he was. Another motive for this step was a haunting perplexity as to the hallucination under which he had apparently laboured with regard to the estate accounts.
He has no idea that Ratman is anything but an Indian acquaintance." "My address will be `"Green Dragon," Oxford," said the tutor. "By the way," said Roger both men were talking in the forced tones which belong to an unacknowledged estrangement "Whether this matter is right or not, I propose to write to Ratman and enclose him £10." "Naturally," said the tutor.
"I never saw you before, sir," said His Grace; "and allow me to add, I have no desire to see you again." "Dear Duke!" whispered Jill encouragingly, putting her hand in his. "Odd the changes a few years make," rejoined Mr Ratman. "I presume your lordship's memory can carry you back a little time say twenty years?" "What of that, sir?"
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