the inheritance. Of course it
will be a most grievous disappointment, but what is life made of? I'm
afraid some people will be anything but grieved. We must confess that
Hubert has not been exactly popular; and I rather wonder at it; I'm
sure he might have been if he had liked. Just a little too--too
self-conscious, don't you think? Of course it was quite a mistake, but
people had an idea that he presumed on wealth which was not his own.
Well, well, we quiet folk look on, don't we? It's rather like a play.'

Presently Mrs. Mewling leaned forward yet more confidentially.

'My dear, you won't be offended? You don't mind a question? There wasn't
anything definite?--Adela, I mean.'

'Nothing, nothing whatever!' Mrs. Waltham asserted with vigour.

'Ha!' Mrs. Mewling sighed deeply. 'How relieved I am! I did so fear!'

'Nothing whatever,' the other lady repeated.

'Thank goodness! Then there is no need to breathe a word of those
shocking matters. But they do get abroad so!'

A reflection Mrs. Mewling was justified in making.

CHAPTER II

The cab which had passed Adela and her brother at a short distance from
Wanley brought faces to the windows or door of almost every house as it
rolled through the village street. The direction in which it was going,
the trunk on the roof, the certainty that it had come from Agworth
station, suggested to everyone that young Eldon sat within. The occupant
bad, however, put up both windows just before entering the village, and
sight of him was not obtained. Wanley had abundant matter for gossip
that evening. Hubert's return, giving a keener edge to the mystery of
his so long delay, would alone have sufficed to wagging tongues; hut,
in addition, Mrs. Mewling was on the warpath, and the intelligence she
spread was of a kind to run like wildfire.

The approach to the Manor was a carriage-road, obliquely ascending the
bill from a point some quarter of a mile beyond the cottages which once
housed Belwick's abbots. Of the house scarcely a glimpse could be caught
till you were well within the gates, so thickly was it embosomed in
trees. This afternoon it wore a cheerless face; most of the blinds were
still down, and the dwelling might have been unoccupied, for any sign of
human activity that the eye could catch. There was no porch at the main
entrance, and the heavy nail-studded door greeted a visitor somewhat
sombrely. On the front of a gable stood the words 'Nisi Dominus.'

The veh