While Sir Oswald and his friend were enjoying a brief interval of confidential intercourse, Reginald Eversleigh and Victor Carrington lounged in a pleasant little sitting-room, smoking their cigars, and leaning on the stone sill of the wide Gothic window. They were talking, and talking very earnestly. "You are a very clever fellow, I know, my dear Carrington," said Reginald; "but it is slow work, very slow work, and I don't see my way through it." "Because you are as impatient as a child who has set his heart on a new toy," answered the surgeon, disdainfully. "You complain that the game is slow, and yet you see one move after another made upon the board--and made successfully. A month ago you did not believe in the possibility of a reconciliation between your uncle and yourself; and yet that reconciliation has come about. A fortnight ago you would have laughed at the idea of my being here at Raynham, an invited guest; and yet here I am. Do you think there has been no patient thought necessary to work out this much of our scheme? Do you suppose that I was on Thorpe Hill by accident that afternoon?" "And you hope that something may come of your visit here?" "I hope that much may come of it. I have already dared to drop hints at injustice done to you. That idea of injustice will rankle in your uncle's mind. I have my plans, Reginald, and you have only to be patient, and to trust in me." "But why should you refuse to tell me the nature of your plans?" "Because my plans are as yet but half formed. I may soon be able to speak more plainly. Do you see those two figures yonder, walking in the _pleasaunce_?" "Yes, I see them--my uncle and his wife," answered Reginald, with a gesture of impatience. "They are very happy--are they not? It is quite an Arcadian picture. I beg you to contemplate it earnestly." "What a fool you are, Carrington!" cried the young man, flinging away his cigar. "If my uncle chooses to make an idiot of himself, that is no reason why I should watch the evidence of his folly!" "But there is another reason," answered Victor, with a sinister look in his glittering black eyes. "Look at the picture while you may, Reginald, for you will not have the chance of seeing it very often." "What do you mean?" "I mean that the day is near at hand when Lady Eversleigh will fall from her high estate. I mean that an elevation as sudden as hers is often the forerunner of a sudden disgrace. The hour will come when Sir Oswald will mourn his fatal marriage as the one irrevocable mistake of his life; and when, in his despair, he will restore you, the disgraced nephew, to your place, as his acknowledged heir; because you will at least seem to him more worthy than his disgraced wife." "And who is to bring this about?" asked Reginald, gazing at his friend in complete bewilderment.