"Well, I really hadn't a minute to come over here! But make me welcome now that I am come, eh Turkey?" "Welcome? Why, bless you, sir, you know well enough that you're as welcome as flowers in May! We _have_ missed you dreadful all this summer! I can't think why gentlemen should want to go to such outlandish spots: I looked out the place in 'Peter Parley,' that I did, and I used to shake in my bed when I thought of all you must be going through, when you might be at home, here, with everything nice and comfortable about you." "I'll tell you what we'll do, Turkey--you can tell McGregor to lay dinner in the business room to-night, and you shall have it with me." As if struck by a sudden idea, he added, "And we'll have beans and bacon!" Mrs. Turke went off into a fit of laughter. "In October!" she cried. "Why, my lamb, where's all your fine learning gone to? Not but what, thanks to glass and the stoves, the fruits of the earth do appear at queer times nowadays, but it would be a sin to waste glass and stoves on beans!" Berwick was not one whit abashed, "If we can't have broad beans, we can have toasted cheese. My sister has got a French chef at Fletchings, and luncheon to-day was--well, you know, Turkey!" "I know, sir, just kickshaws! Taking the bread out of honest Englishwomen's mouths. I'd chef him!" and Berwick realised from the expression of her face that Mrs. Turke thought to chef was French for to cook. But there was a more important matter now in hand to be discussed, and she said slily, "You'll have better company than me to-night, Mr. James,--you'll have to put on your company manners, sir, for there's a lady staying here now, you know." "A lady?" he cried, "the devil there is!" "You remember Mr. and Mrs. Richard Rebell, surelye? They were here constant,--now let me see, a matter of twenty-five years ago and more, when you, Mr. James, were ten years old, my dear." "What?" he said, his tone suddenly altering, "do you mean--surely you cannot mean that poor Richard Rebell's daughter is staying here--in the Priory?--now?" "Yes, that's just what she is doing--staying." "Oh!" he said, in an altered voice, "perhaps after all I had better go back to Chillingworth to-night." He added abruptly, "She married (her name is Barbara, isn't it?) one of the West Indian Rebells. Is he here too?" Mrs. Turke folded her hands together, and shook her head sadly, but with manifest enjoyment. It was well that Mr. James knew nothing, and that it had been her part to tell the great news. "Oh no, we never mention him; his name is never heard! From what I can make out from the doctor,--but you know, Mr. James, what he's like,--the poor young lady, I mean Mrs. Rebell, has been most unlucky, matrimonially speaking; just like--_you know who_, sir----" "Oh! she's left her husband, has she? It seems to run in the family. Has she been here long, Turkey?"