And then Miss Sampson began to speculate upon the probable nature of the business which required her brother’s presence at the Manor House. People who live in such a secluded village as Hazlehurst are very glad of anything to wonder about on a Sunday evening in winter. At half-past eight precisely, Mr. Sampson presented himself at the Manor House, and was shown into the library. This room was rarely used, as Mr. and Mrs. Treverton kept all their favourite books elsewhere. Here, on these massive oaken shelves, there was no literature that was not at least a century old. It was a repository for the genius of the dead. Travels, from Marco Polo to Captain Cook; histories, from Herodotus to Mrs. Catherine Macaulay; poetry, from Chaucer to Milton; all bound in soberest brown calf, all with the dust of years thick upon their upper edges. It was a long, narrow room, with three tall windows, curtained with faded crimson cloth. It had an awful and almost judicial look on this Sunday evening, dimly lighted by a pair of moderator lamps on the centre table, making a focus of light in the middle of the room, and leaving the corners in darkness. There was a good fire in the wide old basket-shaped grate, and Tom Sampson sat beside it, waiting for his host to appear. Trimmer had told him that Mr. Treverton would be with him presently. Presently seemed to mean half an hour, for the clock struck nine while Mr. Sampson still waited. Not having any inclination to dip into the literature of the past, he had allowed the fire to draw him to sleep, and was slumbering placidly when the door opened and Trimmer announced Mr. Clare. Tom Sampson started up, and rubbed his eyes, thinking for the moment that he had fallen asleep by the fire in his snuggery, and that Eliza had come to call him to supper--supper being another of those solaces which Mr. Sampson required to beguile the dulness of Sunday leisure. The Vicar was surprised to see Mr. Sampson, and Mr. Sampson was equally surprised to see the Vicar. They told each other how they had been summoned. ‘It must be something rather important,’ said Mr. Clare. ‘It must be something connected with the estate, or he would scarcely want you and me,’ said Sampson. John Treverton and his wife entered the room together. Both were very pale, but Laura’s countenance wore a look of keen distress, which had no part in the expression of her husband’s face. Secure of his wife’s allegiance, he was ready to meet calamity, whatever shape it might assume. ‘Mr. Clare, Mr. Sampson, I have sent for you as the trustees under my cousin Jasper’s will,’ he began, when he had apologized to the lawyer for letting him wait so long, and had placed Laura in a chair near the fire. ‘That’s a misnomer,’ said Sampson. ‘Our trusts under Jasper Treverton’s will determined on your wedding day. We are only trustees to the settlement made for Miss Malcolm’s benefit, sixteen years ago, and to your wife’s marriage settlement.’