"You would have destroyed it. You would have carried your loyalty to my father so far. But the deed was delivered to my grandfather and subsequently he made his will. For twenty years there was silence between father and son, a silence which was broken at length by the father, who wrote to the son and asked him to return. Then Sir Ralph wrote once more to my father and said that he would give the latter twenty years to decide. He had made a will at the same date as that of the second letter, leaving everything to my father, provided that within twenty years of that date he claimed his patrimony. If the date passed, then everything was to go to the man nominated in that will. I need not say that the man so indicated was Sir George Dashwood. In other words, if I make no sign for six months, the property becomes his irrevocably. I can claim the property as my father's heir, and I can produce that will as proof of my claim." "But the will was never found," Slight said eagerly. "We looked for a will everywhere." "It was hidden away. In old Sir Ralph's last letter to my father he explained the hiding-place. I have only to let Sir George know where the will is, and he is safe. For the will directs the finder to the repository of the deed cutting off the entail, so that Sir George can prove his claim then to everything. At present he has no more than the income of the estate, and I have ascertained that he has many old debts to pay off. In addition to this he is under the thumb of a scoundrel." "Ay, that he is," Slight muttered. "We servants learn a great deal more than you gentlemen give us credit for. That Mayfield means mischief. They say that he's rich. But riches don't content him. He wants to marry Miss Mary. And she can't bear the look of him. If only he can ruin Sir George, his path will be clear. Miss Mary would break her heart if she had to leave this place. From a child she was brought up here, she loves every stick and stone. And she was always led to believe that some day it would belong to her, because her father was the last of the old race, seeing that we all regarded Master Ralph as dead and buried. And Miss Mary had dreams of being mistress here some day, and, maybe, dreams, too, of a good husband and children of her own. Ay, it's a terrible weapon this Mayfield has in his hands." "So it seems," Ralph replied. "I know the rascal well, for he ruined my father two years ago. Mind you, at that time, I had never heard of Dashwood Park. I was merely the son of a Mr. Darnley who had done well silver mining in California. Mayfield came to us in London and we trusted him, trusted him to such an extent that nearly all we had passed into his hands. It was only on his deathbed that my father told me everything, told me what my birthright was, and how I could secure it, if I did not wait too long. So I came down here to look about me, and to my surprise I found that I had met Miss Mary before in Paris. Is she a favourite here, Slight?"