what is the good of interfering. As far as she is
concerned, a great burden is off your hands."

"What do you mean by a burden?"

"I mean that her engagement to Captain Aylmer makes it unnecessary
for you to suppose that she is in want of any pecuniary assistance.
You told me once before that you would feel yourself called upon to
see that she wanted nothing."

"So I do now."

"But Captain Aylmer will look after that."

"I tell you what it is, Joe; I mean to settle the Belton property
in such a way that she shall have it, and that he shan't be
able to touch it. And it shall go to some one who shall have my
name,--William Belton. That's what I want you to arrange for me."

"After you are dead, you mean."

"I mean now, at once. I won't take the estate from her. I hate the
place and everything belonging to it. I don't mean her. There is no
reason for hating her."

"My dear Will, you are talking nonsense."

"Why is it nonsense? I may give what belongs to me to whom I please."

"You can do nothing of the kind;--at any rate, not by my assistance.
You talk as though the world were all over with you,--as though you
were never to be married or have any children of your own."

"I shall never marry."

"Nonsense, Will. Don't make such an ass of yourself as to suppose
that you'll not get over such a thing as this. You'll be married and
have a dozen children yet to provide for. Let the eldest have Belton
Castle, and everything will go on then in the proper way."

Belton had now got the poker into his hands, and sat silent for some
time, knocking the coals about. Then he got up, and took his hat, and
put on his coat. "Of course I can't make you understand me," he said;
"at any rate not all at once. I'm not such a fool as to want to give
up my property just because a girl is going to be married to a man I
don't like. I'm not such an ass as to give him my estate for such a
reason as that;--for it will be giving it to him, let me tie it up
as I may. But I've a feeling about it which makes it impossible for
me to take it. How would you like to get a thing by another fellow
having destroyed himself?"

"You can't help that. It's yours by law."

"Of course it is. I know that. And as it's mine I can do what I like
with it. Well;--good-bye. When I've got anything to say, I'll write."
Then he went down to his cab and had himself driven to the Great
Western Railway Hotel.

Captain Aylmer had sent to his betrothed seventy-fi