“I suppose that the two thousand raised by you would have to be repaid out of the six thousand raised by mortgage, leaving me with a balance of four thousand in hand?” said the Squire, without heeding Tom’s question, a smile of incredulity playing round his mouth. “No, sir,” answered Tom. “The two thousand pounds could remain on interest at five per cent. for whatever term might suit your convenience. Again, sir, I ask, have I your permission to negotiate the transaction for you?” Mr. Culpepper gazed steadily for a moment or two into Tom’s clear, cold eyes. There were no symptoms of insanity visible there, at any rate. “And do you mean to tell me in sober seriousness,” he said, “that you can raise this money in the way you speak of?” “In sober seriousness, I mean to tell you that I can. Try me.” “I will try you,” answered the Squire, impulsively. “I will try you, boy. You are a strange fellow, and I begin to think that there’s more in you than I ever thought there was. But here comes Jenny. Not a word more just now.” CHAPTER II. IN THE SYCAMORE WALK. The Park Newton clocks, with more or less unanimity as to time, had just struck ten. It was a February night, clear and frosty, and Lionel Dering sat in his dressing-room in slippered ease, musing by firelight. He had turned out the lamp on purpose; it was too garish for his mood to-night. He was back again in thought at Gatehouse Farm. Again he saw the gray old cottage, with its moss-grown eaves—the cottage that was so ugly outside, but so cosy within. Again he saw the long low sandhills, where they stretched themselves out to meet the horizon, and, in fancy, heard again the low, monotonous plash of the waves, whose melancholy music, heard by day and night, had at one time been as familiar to him as the sound of his own voice. What a quiet, happy time that seemed as he now looked back to it—a time of soft shadows and mild sunshine, with a pensive charm that was all its own, and that was lost for ever in the hour which told him that he was a rich man! Riches! What had riches done for him? He groaned in spirit as he asked himself the question. He could have been happy with Edith in a garret—how happy none but himself could have told—had fortune compelled him to earn her bread and his own by the sweat of his strong right arm. His musings were interrupted by a knock at the door. “Come in,” he called out mechanically; and in there came, almost without, a sound, Dobbs, body-servant to Kester St. George. “Oh, Dobbs, is that you?” said Lionel, a little wearily, as he turned his head and saw who it was. “Yes, sir, I have made bold to intrude upon you for a few seconds,” said Dobbs, with the utmost deference, as he slowly advanced into the room, rubbing the long lean fingers of one hand softly with the palm of the other. “My master has not yet got back from Duxley, and there’s nobody about just now.” “Quite right, Dobbs,” said Lionel. “Anything fresh to report?”