"I call it a poor--and a mean--game," remarked Pratt, while his old master was thus occupied, "a very mean game indeed, of well-to-do folk like Mr. Collingwood and Mr. Robson to want to injure me in a matter which is no business of theirs. I shall do my duty by Mrs. Mallathorpe--you yourself know I'm fully competent to do it--and I shall fully earn the percentage that she'll pay me. What right have these people--what right has her daughter--to come between me and my living?" "Oh, well, well!" said Eldrick, as he handed back the papers and rose. "It's one of those matters that hasn't been understood. You made a mistake, you know, Pratt, when you went to see Mrs. Mallathorpe yesterday in her daughter's absence. You shouldn't have done that." Pratt pulled open a drawer and, after turning over some loose papers, picked out a letter. "Do you know Mrs. Mallathorpe's handwriting?" he asked. "Very well--there it is! Isn't that a request from her that I should call on her yesterday afternoon? Very well then!" Eldrick looked at the letter with some surprise. He had a good memory, and he remembered that Collingwood had told him that Nesta had said that Pratt had gone to Normandale Grange, seen Esther Mawson, and told her that it was absolutely necessary for him to see Mrs. Mallathorpe. And though Eldrick was naturally unsuspicious, an idea flashed across his mind--had Pratt got Mrs. Mallathorpe to write that letter while he was there--yesterday--and brought it away with him? "I think there's a good deal of misunderstanding," he said. "Mr. Collingwood says that you went there and told her maid that it was absolutely necessary for you to see her mistress--sort of forced yourself in, you see, Pratt." "Nothing of the sort!" retorted Pratt. He flourished the letter in his hand. "Doesn't it say there, in Mrs. Mallathorpe's own handwriting, that she particularly desires to see me at three o'clock? It does! Then it was absolutely necessary for me to see her. Come, now! And Mr. Collingwood had best attend to his own business. What's he got to do with all this? After Miss Mallathorpe and her money, I should think!--that's about it!" Eldrick said another soothing word or two, and went back to his own office. He was considerably mystified by certain things, but inclined to be satisfied about others, and in giving an account of what had just taken place he unconsciously seemed to take Pratt's side--much to Robson's disgust, and to Collingwood's astonishment. "You can't get over this, you know, Robson," said Eldrick. "Pratt went there yesterday by appointment--went at Mrs. Mallathorpe's own express desire, made in her own handwriting. And it's quite certain that what he says about the relationship is true---I examined the proof myself. It's not unnatural that Mrs. Mallathorpe should desire to do something for her own cousin's son."