"By what I gathered from a word or two you let fall, I should assume that you are a friend of Rupert Trevlyn's, ma'am?" "I hope I am," said Nora, mollified at the prospect of enlightenment. "Few folks about here but are friends to him, unless it's Chattaway and his lot at the Hold." "Then perhaps you will have no objection to inform me--if you can inform me--how it was that Mr. Chattaway came into possession of the Hold, in place of young Rupert Trevlyn. I cannot understand how it could possibly have been. Until I came here to-day, I never supposed but the lad, Rupert, was Squire of Trevlyn Hold." "Perhaps you'll first of all tell me what you want the information for?" returned Nora. "I don't know who you are, sir, remember." "You heard me say I was a friend of his father's; I should like to be a friend to the boy. It appears to me to be a monstrous injustice that he should not have succeeded to the estate of his ancestors. Has he been _legally_ deprived of it?" "As legally as a properly-made will could deprive him," was the reply of Nora. "Legality and justice don't always go together in our parts: I don't know what they may do in yours." "Joe Trevlyn--my friend--was the direct heir to Trevlyn Hold. Upon his death his son became the heir. Why did he not succeed?" "There are folks that say he was cheated out of it," replied Nora, in very significant tones. "Cheated out of it?" "It is said the news of Rupert's birth was never suffered to reach the ears of Squire Trevlyn. That the Squire went to his grave, never knowing he had a grandson in the direct male line--went to it after willing the estate to Chattaway." "Kept from it by whom?" eagerly cried Mr. Daw. "By those who had an interest in keeping it from him--Chattaway and Miss Diana Trevlyn. It is so said, I say: _I_ don't assert it. There may be danger in speaking too openly to a stranger," candidly added Nora. "There is no danger in speaking to me," he frankly said. "I have told you the truth--that I am a friend of young Rupert Trevlyn's. Chattaway is not a friend of mine, and I never saw him in my life." Nora, won over to forget caution and ill-temper, opened her heart to the stranger. She told him all she knew of the fraud; told him of Rupert's friendlessness, his undesirable position at the Hold. Nora's tongue, set going upon any grievance she felt strongly, could not be stopped. They walked on until the fold-yard gate of Trevlyn Farm was reached. There Nora came to a halt. And there she was in the midst of a concluding oration, delivered with forcible eloquence, and there the stranger was listening eagerly, when they were interrupted by George Ryle. Nora ceased suddenly. The stranger looked round, and seeing a gentleman-like man who evidently belonged in some way to Nora, lifted his hat. George returned it. "It's somebody strange to the place," unceremoniously pronounced Nora, by way of introducing him to George. "He was asking about Rupert Trevlyn." CHAPTER XXIII