"And how are you to come by this thirty thousand pounds, fair coz?" asked Mr. Dumaresq, with something slightly uneasy in his shifty glance. "Right gladly would I receive mine own, and make way for a gallant gentleman like you; but where are these riches of Aladdin to come from?" "Perchance from the same source as yours did come, sir," answered Grey, looking full at his interlocutor. "The Dumaresqs have not ranked as a wealthy family since the days of the Civil War, when they lost so much. But you seem to have found fortune’s golden key; and if you, why not I?" Did he shrink and cower under these words, or was it only Grey’s fancy that he did so? The young man could not be sure, though he had his suspicions. At any rate he spoke suavely enough. "Thrift and care, my young friend, care and thrift—these qualities are better than any golden key of hazard. My father was a careful, saving man, and at his death bequeathed me greater wealth than I dreamed he did possess. I followed in his footsteps until, for your father’s sake, I elected to prop the falling fortunes of the house rather than live in selfish affluence on my own revenues. Well, I did what seemed right; and my reward shall be the hope of seeing Hartsbourne one day restored to its former glories. But for the present I must needs live like a poor man, though that is no trouble to one who has ever made thrift the law of life." Grey went forth from the presence of his kinsman with a cloud on his brow and a fire in his heart. "Why doth he speak of himself as poor?" he asked of himself. "He takes to himself all the revenues of the estate; and when I was a boy, I always heard that the farms were prosperous, the land fertile, the timber fine, game and deer plentiful, and the tenants able to pay their dues. If all that comes in goes into his pocket, wherefore doth he live like a miser? wherefore doth he let the house fall into decay? he ruined himself for my father’s sake? Tush! A man with that face sacrifice himself for another! Nay; but he is hoarding up gold for himself, or I greatly mistake me. Truly do I believe that he is playing some deep game of his own. Well, I can but wait and see what time will bring forth. It is a shame that the old house should be left to go to ruin like this, with its revenues falling regularly into the hands of a Dumaresq! Why doth he not spend them upon the fine old structure, to make it what it was before? Why, now I see. He thinks it would stimulate me to fresh desire to make myself master. He may haply think that I care not for a habitation given up to rats and ghosts and cobwebs. He little thinks that every fallen stone seems to cry out aloud to me, and that the lower falls the old house in ruin and neglect, the more urgent is the voice with which it urges me to come and save it."