“I thought you had been with the family at that grand house of theirs? However! Paul was hot upon our emigration scheme, you know; he would hear no reason on that subject. I warned him that it was not a thing for men like him, with soft hands and muscles unstrung; but he paid me no attention. There was another thing, I believe, a secondary motive,” said Spears, with a wave of his hand, “a thing that never would have come into my head, which his mother found out--the kind of business that women do find out. Well! His father is dead, and I suppose he has come into the title and all that. But here’s the rub. We are within a fortnight of our start, and never another word from Paul. What does he mean by it? has he been persuaded by the women? has he thrown us overboard and gone in for the old business of landlord and aristocrat? I have told him many a time it was in his blood; but never was there one more hot for better principles. Now look here, Fairfax, you’re not the man to pretend ignorance. What do you know?” “Nothing but that Sir William is dead.” “Sir William is dead, that means, long live Sir Paul: _lay roy est mortt, veeve lay roy_,” said Spears, with honest English pronunciation. “Yes, the papers would tell you that. If he’s going to give it all up,” he went on, a deep colour coming over his face, “I sha’n’t be surprised. I don’t say that I’ll like it, but I sha’n’t be surprised. A large property--and a title--may be a temptation: but in that case it’s his duty to let us know. I suppose you and he see each other sometimes?” “By chance we have met to-day.”