"No. I have left my wife personal and resident guardian at Alnwick until Benja shall be twenty-one. At that period she must leave it, or only remain there as Benja's guest. It is right, I believe, that it should be so. And I have a precedent in my father's will." "But his widow was your own mother." Mr. St. John made no immediate reply. The distinction had probably not occurred to him. "Take my advice, George St. John," said the surgeon impressively; "do not leave Benja under the charge of your wife. I would rather not discuss with you the why and the wherefore; but rely upon it some other plan will be better both for the boy and for Mrs. St. John." He went away as he spoke, and George St. John turned slowly back to the Hall. The conversation recalled to his mind with vivid force the almost-forgotten words of Honour; and an uncomfortable feeling of indecision crept into it. Still he did not see any feasible way of altering the arrangements he had made. When he died, Alnwick Hall would be Benja's, and must be the boy's chief home during his minority; he could not turn his wife out of it, and he could not place any one else in it as Benja's personal guardian. He had no means of providing a suitable residence for his widow if she left the Hall: in fact, it was only as the heir's guardian that he could at all adequately provide for her. Neither, it must be confessed, did Mr. St. John himself see any great necessity for separating them: but he was a man amenable to counsel, open to advice, and the opinion of two friends (surely both may be called so!) so attached to him as Mr. Pym and Honour, bore weight with him. It had not been George St. John had he ignored it. "May God help me to do right!" he murmured, as he entered the house. He dwelt much upon it during the remainder of the day; he lay awake part of the night: and only when he came to a decision did he get to sleep. Early the next morning he rang for his servant; and at eight o'clock the pony-carriage conveyed him to the railway station at Alnwick to take the train. As the market people looked at him, passing them betimes in the fresh February morning, at the bright colour in his face, the wavy brown hair stirred by the gentle breeze, they said to themselves, how well Mr. Carleton St. John was looking, though thin. He was going over to Castle Wafer. An hour and a-quarter's journey brought him to a certain town; there he waited twenty minutes, and took another train. Rather more than another hour and a-quarter of very quick travelling, for this last was an express, conveyed him to Lexington, and thence he took a fly to Castle Wafer.