The latter was tempted to smile at what at first appeared the obtuseness of the young man. But he was a man of the world. Wellfield’s absence of mind, and his unconsciousness of the hint which lay behind that remark about the sole heiress, might be an innocence which would certainly be refreshing in one who must have been the object of so much matrimonial angling as Jerome Wellfield, in the days when he had been the supposed heir to the Abbey and a fortune; but it also might not be innocence at all. It might be that some deeper reason caused that obtuseness. Probably young Wellfield was in love already. With his disposition, and with the life he had led, it was most unlikely that he should have travelled so far in life without ever having had his heart touched. Pablo Somerville knew when to be reserved and when to be open, even cynically open and candid. He judged this a fitting occasion on which to display the latter qualities. ‘She knows it, I should imagine?’ he said. ‘Yes—of course, yes. She told me this morning how pleased she often felt at the idea of one day owning the Abbey,’ said Jerome, still not awake to the palpable bearings of the case. (‘_Quelle bêtise!_—how like a _roturier_!’ flashed rapidly through Somerville’s mind; ‘if she likes the Abbey, no doubt she would like the owner—the once owner!’) Aloud, he said, striking at once me, and sharply: ‘Has a _mariage de convenance_ never occurred to you as a way out of your difficulties?’ he inquired, in a thoroughly matter-of-fact, composed tone. Jerome abruptly came to a dead stop. His eyes leaped to the other’s face. The priest looked at him with a slight cool smile, half rallying, half surprised. ‘Never,’ at last replied Wellfield, almost frigidly. But his heart was beating fast and suddenly. ‘I am surprised at that. I should fancy it would be very easily arranged. And then, if you really wish for employment, nothing would be easier than to find it. It is always to be bought, if you will pay dear enough for it. Were you but a Catholic, I know of one—two marriages of that kind, which might soon be negotiated through our influence. As it is, I am not Jesuit enough to pretend that I would connive at marrying a Catholic heiress to a heretic, even where the heretic is Jerome Wellfield.’ Jerome laughed a little. ‘It would certainly be a good deal to expect,’ said he. ‘It would, since you would probably not only marry the heiress, but convert her, if you wished to. But why should you not think of Miss Bolton? You would soon win her, and, with her, regain your patrimony and your home.’