nly miss you very much, as
you have been very good, considering how busy you have been, to come in
three or four evenings every week for a chat."

"There has been nothing very good about it, Millicent; it has been very
pleasant to me; it is like a bit of old times again when I am here with
you two, and seem to leave all the excitement of one's work behind as I
come in at the door."

"I wonder whether the old time will ever come back again, Mark?" she
said sadly.

"It never can be quite the old time again, but when you are back at the
old place it may be very near it."

She looked at him reproachfully.

"You think that I shall change my mind, Mark, but at heart you know
better. The day I am one and twenty I hope to carry out my intentions."

"Well, as I have told you before, Millicent, I cannot control your
actions, but I am at least master of my own. You can give away Crowswood
to whom you like, but at least you cannot compel me to take it. Make it
over to one of the hospitals if you like--that is within your power; but
it is not in your power to force me into the mean action of enriching
myself because you have romantic notions in your mind. I should scorn
myself were I capable of doing such an action. I wonder you think so
meanly of me as to suppose for a moment that I would do so."

"It is a great pity my father did not leave the property outright to
your father, then all this bother would have been avoided," she said
quietly. "I should still have had plenty to live upon without there
being any fear of being loved merely for my money."

"It would have been the same thing if he had," Mark said stubbornly.
"My father would not have taken it, and I am sure that I should not have
taken it after him; you are his proper heiress. I don't say if he had
left a son, and that son had been a second Bastow, that one would have
hesitated, for he would probably have gambled it away in a year, the
tenants might have been ruined, and the village gone to the dogs.
Every man has a right to disinherit an unworthy son, but that is a very
different thing from disinheriting a daughter simply from a whim. Well,
don't let us talk about it any more, Millicent. It is the only thing
that we don't agree about, and therefore it is best left alone."

The next day Mark established himself at an inn in Peckham, and for six
weeks made diligent inquiries, but without success. There were at least
a dozen men who lived quietly and rode or drov