"Cunning old fox!" Sir Charles exclaimed, with a sniff. "What's he up to now, I wonder? Seems almost as anxious to amalgamate as we ourselves are, Sey." A sudden thought struck him. "Do you know," he cried, looking up, "I really believe the same thing must have happened to _both_ our exploring parties. _They_ must have found a reef that goes under _our_ ground, and the wicked old rascal wants to cheat us out of it!" "As we want to cheat him," I ventured to interpose. Charles looked at me fixedly. "Well, if so, we're both in luck," he murmured, after a pause; "though _we_ can only get to know the whereabouts of _their_ find by joining hands with them and showing them ours. Still, it's good business either way. But I shall be cautious--cautious." "What a nuisance!" Amelia cried, when we told her of the incident. "I suppose I shall have to put the man up for the night--a nasty, raw-boned, half-baked Scotchman, you may be certain." On Wednesday afternoon, about three, young Granton arrived. He was a pleasant-featured, red-haired, sandy-whiskered youth, not unlike his father; but, strange to say, he dropped in to call, instead of bringing his luggage. "Why, you're not going back to Glen-Ellachie to-night, surely?" Charles exclaimed, in amazement. "Lady Vandrift will be _so_ disappointed! Besides, this business can't be arranged between two trains, do you think, Mr. Granton?" Young Granton smiled. He had an agreeable smile--canny, yet open. "Oh no," he said frankly. "I didn't mean to go back. I've put up at the inn. I have my wife with me, you know--and, I wasn't invited." Amelia was of opinion, when we told her this episode, that David Granton wouldn't stop at Seldon because he was an Honourable. Isabel was of opinion he wouldn't stop because he had married an unpresentable young woman somewhere out in South Africa. Charles was of opinion that, as representative of the hostile interest, he put up at the inn, because it might tie his hands in some way to be the guest of the chairman of the rival company. And _I_ was of opinion that he had heard of the castle, and knew it well by report as the dullest country-house to stay at in Scotland. However that may be, young Granton insisted on remaining at the Cromarty Arms, though he told us his wife would be delighted to receive a call from Lady Vandrift and Mrs. Wentworth. So we all returned with him to bring the Honourable Mrs. Granton up to tea at the Castle. She was a nice little thing, very shy and timid, but by no means unpresentable, and an evident lady. She giggled at the end of every sentence; and she was endowed with a slight squint, which somehow seemed to point all her feeble sallies. She knew little outside South Africa; but of that she talked prettily; and she won all our hearts, in spite of the cast in her eye, by her unaffected simplicity.