"Yes, yes, I understand; well, I will see; wait, at all events, till Mr. Harlowe is dead. I will think it over. No, I don't see any reason why they should not live there if they like;" he sighed, wearily, and his mother went away, feeling that she had reason to be satisfied with her morning's work. She was in such a hurry to install her darling there--to see him viceroy in the place where now it was certain he must eventually be king. Why should he be doomed to wait till Kynaston came to him in the course of nature; why should he not enter upon his kingdom at once, since Sir John, by his own confession, would never marry or live there himself? Lady Kynaston was very far from wishing evil to her eldest son, but for years she had hoped that he would remain unmarried; for a short time she had been forced to lay her dreams aside, and she had striven to forget them and to throw herself with interest into her eldest son's engagement; but now that the marriage was broken off, all her old schemes and plans came back to her again. She was working and planning again for Maurice's happiness and aggrandisement. She wanted to see him in his father's house, "Kynaston of Kynaston," before she died, and to know that his future was safe. To see him married to Helen and living at Kynaston appeared to her to be the very best that she could desire for him. In time, of course, the title and the money would be his too; meanwhile, with old Mr. Harlowe's fortune, an ample allowance from his brother, and all the prestige of his old name and his old house, she should live to see him take his own rightful place among the magnates of his native county. That would be far better than to be a captain in a line regiment, barely able to live upon his income. That was all she coveted for him, and she said to herself that her ambition was not unreasonable, and that it would be hard indeed if it might not be gratified. As she drove homewards to Walpole Lodge she felt that her schemes were in a fair way for success. She was not going to let Maurice know of them too soon; by-and-by, when all was settled, she would tell him; she would keep it till then as a pleasant surprise. All the same, she had been unable to refrain from telling Helen Romer something of what was in her mind. "If John does not marry, he might perhaps make Maurice his agent and let him live at Kynaston," she had said to her a few days ago when they had been speaking of old Mr. Harlowe's illness. "How would Maurice like to leave the army?" Helen had asked. "If he marries, he must do so," his mother had replied, significantly; and Helen's heart had beat high with hope and triumph. Again to-day, on her way to her eldest son's rooms, she had stopped at Princes Gate and had alluded to it.