Oliver Tropenell got up. "Yes," he said shortly, "he's certainly grateful. In fact, he seems to think I've limitless power of getting people out of scrapes----" there was an undercurrent of triumph in his deep, even tones. "I suppose the real reason he came to-day was that he's afraid to let a stranger be Laura's trustee?" There was only the slightest touch of interrogation in Mrs. Tropenell's voice, and she went on: "Perhaps he'd be kinder to poor Gillie _now_--" a curious smile played round her mouth. It was a full-lipped, generous mouth, but it was the least refined feature of her face. "No, no. It's not as bad as that! But well, yes, Pavely _has_ used this portion of Laura's fortune in a way he had no business to do, knowing it was trust money." "And you----?" "Oh, I'm going to buy out her interest in the concern." "Will that cost you seventeen thousand pounds?" "Yes, it will. But I don't mind--it's quite a likely gamble. Have you ever heard of Greville Howard?" "You mean the great money-lender?" "He's retired now. But Pavely and he seem to be in a kind of secret partnership--queer isn't it? Pavely's a clever chap about money, but oh, mother! he's such an insufferable cad!" Mrs. Tropenell felt a sudden tremor of fear sweep over her. She had lately come to what she now realised was a quite wrong conclusion--she had believed, that is, that Oliver, in a queer, contemptuous way, had grown fond of Godfrey, as Godfrey had certainly grown fond of Oliver. But now, all at once, her son had opened a dark window into his soul--or was it into his heart? There was an under-current of hatred, as well as of the contempt to which she was accustomed, in the way Oliver had just spoken of his "friend"--of the man, at once fortunate and unfortunate, who was Laura Pavely's husband. She stood up, and put her hand through her son's arm. "It's getting very cold," she said, and shivered. He turned on her with quick concern: "I left you too long! I ought to have sent him away before--but he was such a long time getting it out--" under his breath he muttered "Damn him!" CHAPTER II Mother and son dined alone together, and then, rather early, Mrs. Tropenell went upstairs. For a while, perhaps as long as an hour, she sat up in bed, reading. At last, however, she turned off the switch of her electric reading lamp, and, lying back in her old-fashioned four-post bed, she shut her eyes for a few moments. Then she opened them, widely, on to her moonlit room. Opposite to where she lay the crescent-shaped bow-window was still open to the night air and the star-powdered sky. On that side of Freshley Manor the wide lawn sloped down to a belt of water meadows, and beyond the meadows there rose steeply a high, flat-topped ridge. Along this ridge Oliver Tropenell was now walking up and down smoking. Now and again his mother saw the shadow-like figure move across the line of her vision.