"The mystery!" cried Roger, with a momentary impatience; "I beg your pardon, Colonel, but what possible mystery can there be about such a history as ours in these days? My dear, good, excellent old godfather, my tenderest of friends and benefactors," said the young man warmly, reddening with that deep consciousness of blame cast upon the dead, which made his language more fervent than was any way needful--"was an old-fashioned country gentleman, and lived to the full extent of his means. Why should not he?--he had no children to provide for. It is so usual a story, that any county in England could match it. He had a liberal hand while he lived, and when he died nothing was left. What possible mystery, what concealment or secret, could be here?" "I cannot tell, indeed," said the Colonel; "but on the other hand, what possible reason could induce Horace Scarsdale, who is penniless himself, to promise a pension to a countryman of the district in your name, for the sake of some discovery connected with you?" Roger mused over this an instant with a troubled face. "Perhaps," he said at last slowly, not so much in pique as might have been supposed, but slightly inclining that way, with visions of unknown rivals crowding darkly before his eyes, "perhaps--I never wrote to ask if I should be welcome--perhaps while Miss Scarsdale is here--" "Miss Scarsdale has nothing whatever to do with the subject. Why, Musgrave, man!" cried the Colonel, "what is the use of bringing Susan in? Susan is as my own child in my own house; think of your own interests, my dear young fellow, and leave Susan alone, though she _is_ a very good girl." "A very good girl!" repeated Roger; "then you don't mind us being together sometimes, Colonel, if she pleases," added, with a blushing burst of frankness, the self-convicted lover. The Colonel shook his head. "Oh, young fools, young fools!" groaned, not from the depths, but only from the surface of his heart, that bewildered veteran; "what's to come of your being sometimes together? Not much increase to your purse, Musgrave, nor advantage to either of you. If you have begun to entertain such fantastic thoughts, your best plan is to think over what I am saying. There must be something, depend upon it, worth hearing, before my clever nephew, Horace, could make up his mind to offer an old countryman such a stipend as six-and-twenty pounds a-year." "Ah!" cried Roger; the young man was struck with momentary conviction, partly by the fact and partly by the argument. He made a hasty memorandum in his own mind, that he would certainly look into it; but his thoughts at the present moment did not very well bear such an interruption. "It looks as if there must be something in it; but, Colonel, won't you postpone it till later?" he said, in a deprecatory tone; "I think, by this time, we ought to join the ladies. They'll blame me already for detaining you. I know you never sit long over your wine."