Edgar consented with a sigh, which he also suppressed. It was not that he disliked the initiation into his real work in life, or objected to throw off the idleness in which he had spent all these years. On the contrary, he had chafed again and again over the inaction--the wretched aimlessness of his existence. But there was something in this sudden plunge into all its new responsibilities and trials, and, more than all, in this posthumous conflict with the will and inclinations of the father who had hated him, which sent a thrill through his mind, and moved his whole being. And in this life which was about to begin there was a mystery concealed somewhere--the secret of his own existence, which some time or other would have to be found out. Nobody seemed to feel this, not even those who were the most fully conscious that an explanation was wanted of the old Squire’s ceaseless enmity to his son. They all took it for granted that it was over; that the Squire’s death had ended everything; and that the heir who had succeeded so tranquilly would reign in peace in his unkind father’s stead. But Edgar’s mind was not so easily satisfied. It seemed to him that on this road which he was entering there stood a great signpost, with a shadowy hand pointing to the secret, and he shrank, knowing that secret would bring him trouble. However, to oppose this visionary sense of risk and danger to Mr. Fazakerley and his papers or to Perfitt and his map would have been folly indeed. So Perfitt, who was the Scotch steward, came, and the young Squire was drawn unconsciously within the charmed circle of property, and began to feel his heart beating and his head throbbing with a certain exhilarated sense of importance and responsibility. When he heard of all that was his, he, who never up to this moment had possessed anything but his personalities, a curious feeling of power came over him. He was young, and his mind was fresh, and the emotions of nature were still strong in him. He had seen a great deal of the world, but it had not been that phase of the world which makes a young man _blasé_. He sat and listened to the discussion of rents and boundaries, of what ought to be done with one farm and another, of the wood that ought to be cut, and the moor that ought to be reclaimed, with a puzzled yet pleasant consciousness that, discuss as they liked, they could not decide without him. He knew so little about it that he had to content himself with listening; but the talk was as a pleasant song to him, pleasing his newborn sense of importance. “You’ll understand fine, Sir, when once you’ve been over the estate with me,” said Perfitt, with a certain condescension which amused Edgar mightily. They seemed to him to be playing at government, suggesting so many things which they had no power to carry out, which must wait for his approval. All his graver anticipations floated away from him in his sense of the humour of the situation.