nd--and----"

"Regularized," Southend supplied with a sharp glance at Harry.

"I don't understand," Harry declared. "You must tell me what you mean.
Is it something that concerns Cecily as well as me?"

"Oh, about that we haven't the right even to ask your feelings. That
would be simply for you to consider. But if anything were to happen----"

"Nothing could." Harry restrained himself no longer. "There can be no
question of it."

"I knew you'd feel like that. Just because you feel like that, I want to
make the other suggestion to you. I'm not speaking idly. I have my
warrant, Mr Tristram. If----" She was at a loss for a moment. "If you
ever went back to Blent," she continued, not satisfied, but driven to
some form of words, "it isn't inevitable that you should go as Mr
Tristram. There are means of righting such injustices as yours. Wait,
please! It would be felt--and felt in a quarter you can guess--that the
master of Blent, which you'd be in fact anyhow, should have that
position recognized. Perhaps there would not be the same feeling unless
you were still associated with Blent."

"I don't understand at all."

She exchanged a despairing glance with Southend; she could not tell
whether or not he was sincere in saying that he did not understand.
Southend grew weary of the diplomacy which he had advocated; after all
it had turned out to be Lady Evenswood's, not his, which may have had
something to do with his change of mood toward it. He took up the task
with a brisk directness.

"It's like this, Harry. You remember that the unsuccessful claimant in
the Bearsdale case got a barony? That's our precedent. But it's felt not
to go quite all the way--because there was a doubt there. (Luckily for
Mina she was not by to hear.) But it is felt that in the event of the
two branches of your family being united it would be proper to--to
obliterate past--er--incidents. And that could be done by raising you to
the peerage, under a new and, as we hope, a superior title. We believe
Mr Disney would, under the circumstances I have suggested, be prepared
to recommend a viscounty, and that there would prove to be no
difficulties in the way." The last words had, presumably, reference to
the same quarter that Lady Evenswood had once described by the words,
"Somebody Else."

They watched him as he digested the proposal, at last made to him in a
tolerably plain form. "You must give me a moment to follow that out," he
said, with a smil