“The blow!” and I smiled. “Yes; the woman! Pray God it be that. The estate--he is welcome to it. I hardly think a Welsh home would bribe me to leave my own country. But I do not see, aunt, why you so often talk as if Wyncote were ours, and stolen from us. I do not want it, and why should I?” “Is not that unreasonable, Hugh?” she returned, with more quietness in the way of reply than was usual when she was arguing. “You are young now. The anger between England and ourselves makes all things in Great Britain seem hateful to you, to me, to all honest colonials; but this will not last. Peace will come one day or another, and when it does, to be Wynne of Wyncote--” “Good gracious, Aunt Gainor! let us set this aside. Arthur Wynne’s lies have stirred us all to think there must be some reason for such a keen desire to mislead me, you, and my father--above all, my father. But it is my father’s business, not mine; nor, if I may be excused, is it yours.” “That is true, or would be if your father were well or interested. He is neither--neither; and there is something in the matter. I shall ask my brother.” “You have done that before.” “I have, but I got nothing. Now he is in such a state that he may be more free of speech. I think he could be got to tell me what neither he nor my own father liked to speak of.” Upon this, I told my aunt that I did trust she would not take advantage of my father’s weak mind to get that which, when of wholesome wits, he had seen fit to conceal. I did not like it. “Nonsense!” she cried, “nonsense! if you could have the old home--” “But how can I? It is like promising fairy gold, and I don’t want it. I should like to go there once and see it and my cousins, and come home to this country.” I was, in fact, weary of the thing, and my aunt would have talked it over all day. She could not see why I was so set in my mind. She kept urging that something would turn up about it, and we should have to act; then I would change my mind. I hardly knew why that which once had been a delightful and mysterious bait now lured me not at all. What with the great war, and my own maturity, and Darthea, Wyncote had shrunken out of the world of my desires. It was too dreamy a bribe for one of my turn of mind. I would have given half Wales for an hour alone with Arthur Wynne. Then through my meditations I heard, “Well, mark my word, Master Absolute; there is some flaw in their title, and--and soon or late--” “Oh, please, aunt--” “Well, do not make up your mind. I am afraid of you when you make up your mind. You are as set in your ways as your father. Do you remember what Nicholas Wain said of him: ‘When John Wynne puts down his foot, thou hast got to dig it up to move him’?” She was right; nor did I defend myself. I laughed, but was sad too, thinking of my poor old father, whom I could not see, and of how far he was now from being what his friend had described.