ith his wish very readily. They crossed the foot-bridge
together.

"I've just been writing to ask my relations to the funeral," he said.
"At my mother's wish, not mine. Only two of them--and I never saw them
in my life."

"I shouldn't think you'd cultivate your relations much."

"No. But Cecily Gainsborough ought to come, I suppose. She's my heir."

Mina turned to him with a gesture of interest or surprise.

"Your heir?" she said. "You mean----?"

"I mean that if I died without having any children, she'd succeed me.
She'd be Lady Tristram in her own right, as my mother was." He faced
round and looked at Blent. "She's never been to the place or seen it
yet," he added.

"How intensely interested she'll be!"

"I don't see why she should," said Harry rather crossly. "It's a great
bore having her here at all, and if I'm barely civil to her that's all I
shall manage. They won't stay more than a few days, I suppose." After a
second he went on: "Her mother wouldn't know my mother, though after her
death the father wanted to be reconciled."

"Is that why you dislike them so?"

"How do you know I dislike them?" he asked, seeming surprised.

"It's pretty evident, isn't it? And it would be a good reason for
disliking the mother anyhow."

"But not the daughter?"

"No, and you seem to dislike the daughter too--which isn't fair."

"Oh, I take the family in the lump. And I don't know that what we've
been talking of has anything to do with it."

He did not seem inclined to talk more about the Gainsboroughs, though
his frown told her that something distasteful was still in his thoughts.
What he had said was enough to rouse in her a great interest and
curiosity about this girl who was his heir. Questions and rights
attracted her mind very little till they came to mean people; then she
was keen on the track of the human side of the matter. The girl whom he
chose to call his heir was really the owner of Blent!

"Are you going to ask us to the funeral?" she said.

"I'm not going to ask anybody. The churchyard is free; they can come if
they like."

"I shall come. Shall you dislike my coming?"

"Oh, no." He was undisguisedly indifferent and almost bored.

"And then I shall see Cecily Gainsborough."

"Have a good look at her. You'll not have another chance--at Blent
anyhow. She'll never come here again."

She looked at him in wonder, in a sort of fear.

"How hard you are sometimes," she said. "The poor girl's done n