“If it is for your happiness, you need not fear that I shall ever relax in my endeavours. I may fail,—indeed, I fear I must fail,—but it shall not be for the lack of earnestness or perseverance.” “I knew that you would help me,” she said, fervently, holding out her hand to him across the table. Dinner was over, and they were alone, with the grapes and peaches of the Priory hothouses, which were not even second to those of Cheriton, unheeded upon the table before them. “Blake is in the house by this time, I dare say,” said Juanita presently. “Would you like to see him here, and shall I stay, or would you rather talk to him alone?” “I had better take him in hand alone. It is always hard work to get straight answers out of that sort of man, and any cross current distracts him. His thoughts are always ready to go off at a tangent.” “He knows all about the Squire’s children. He can give you any particulars you want about them.” The butler came into the room five minutes afterwards with the coffee, and announced the bailiff’s arrival. Juanita rose at once, and left her cousin to receive Jasper Blake alone. He came into the room with rather a sheepish air. He was about sixty, young looking for his age, with a bald forehead, and stubbly iron grey hair, and a little bit of whisker on each sunburnt cheek. He had the horsey look still, though he had long ceased to have anything to do with horses beyond buying and selling cart-horses for the home farm, and occasionally exhibiting a prize animal in that line. He was a useful servant, and a thoroughly honest man, of the old-fashioned order. “Mr. Blake, I want you to give me some information about old friends of yours. I have a little business in hand, which indirectly concerns the Strangway family, and I want to be quite clear in my own mind as to how many are left of them, and where they are to be found.” The bailiff rubbed one of his stunted whiskers meditatively, and shook his head. “There was never many of ’em to leave, sir,” he said, grumpily, “and I don’t believe there’s any of ’em left anywheres. There seems to have been a curse upon ’em, for the last hundred years. Nothing ever throve with them. Look at what Cheriton is now, and what it was in their time.” “I didn’t know it in their time, Mr. Blake.” “Ah, you’re not old enough; but your father knew the place. He did business for the old Squire—till things got too bad—mortgages, and accommodation bills, and overdrawn accounts at the bank, and such like, and your father washed his hands of the business—a long-headed gentleman, your father. He can tell you what Cheriton was like in the Squire’s time.” “Why do you suppose the Strangways are all dead and gone?” “Well, sir, first and foremost it’s fifteen years and more since I’ve heard of any of ’em, and the last I heard was about as bad as bad could be.” “What was that last report?”