"You have come, I believe, in answer to a letter of my father's? Might I ask you what he said, exactly?" Hester's hand went towards her pocket, but paused. She had taken an instant aversion from this man. "My father," he went on, noting her hesitation, "has since died suddenly, as you know. His affairs are in some confusion, of course." This was untrue, but Mr. Sam had no consciousness of telling a lie. The phrase was commonly used of dead men's affairs. "In this matter of your engagement, for instance, I am moving in the dark. I can find no record of it among his papers." "I answered him, sir; but my letter arrived, it seems, after his death. Mr. Benny replied to it." "Yes, to be sure, I saw your letter, but it did not tell me how far the negotiations had gone." "You are one of the Managers, sir?" "Well, not precisely; but you will find that makes little difference. I am to be placed on the Board as my father's successor." "The offer was quite definite," said Hester calmly. "I would show you the letter, but some parts of it are private." "Now why in the world was she ready to show it to Benny?" he asked himself. Aloud he said, "You were a friend, then, of my father's? Is it for him, may I ask, that you wear mourning?" "No, sir; for my own father. Mr. Rosewarne and he were friends--oh, for many years. I asked about it once, when I was quite a girl, and why Mr. Rosewarne came to visit us once every year as he did. My father told me that it had begun in a quarrel, when they were young men; it may have been when my father served in the army, in the barracks at Warwick. I don't remember that he said so, yet somehow I have always had an idea that the quarrel went back to that time; but he said that they had hated one another, and made friends after a long time, and that your father had the most to forgive, being in the wrong. I remember those words, because they sounded so queer to me and I could not understand them. When I was eighteen, I went out to get my living, and did not see Mr. Rosewarne for many years until the other day, though he came regularly." "The other day?" Mr. Sam stared at her blankly. "On the 5th. Mr. Rosewarne always paid his visit on the 5th of June." "I don't understand you in the least. A minute ago you told me that your father was dead!" "Yes; he died almost two months ago. But Mr. Rosewarne wrote and asked leave to come, since it was for the last time." "Your mother entertained him?"