back in ten minutes."

And as he passed out again through the thick archway on to the terrace
he heard, in an incredibly matter-of-fact voice, the letter begin.

"DEAR JACK...."

Then he began to wonder what, as a matter of interest, Lord Talgarth's
first utterance would be. But he felt he could trust Jenny to manage
him. She was an astonishingly sane and sensible girl.

(III)

He was at the further end of the terrace, close beneath the stable wall,
when the stable clock struck the quarter for the second time. That would
make, he calculated, about seventeen minutes, and he turned reluctantly
to keep his appointment. But he was still thirty yards away from the
opening when a white figure in a huge white hat came quickly out. She
beckoned to him with her head, and he followed her down the steps. She
gave him one glance as if to reassure him as he caught her up, but said
not a word, good or bad, till they had passed through the house again,
and were well on their way down the drive.

"Well?" said Jack.

Jenny hesitated a moment.

"I suppose anyone else would have called him violent," she said. "Poor
old dear! But it seems to me he behaved rather well on the
whole--considering all things."

"What's he going to do?"

"If one took anything he said as containing any truth at all, it would
mean that he was going to flog Frank with his own hands, kick him first
up the steps of the house then down again, and finally drown him in the
lake with a stone round his neck. I think that was the sort of
programme."

"But--"

"Oh! we needn't be frightened," said Jenny. "But if you ask me what he
will do, I haven't the faintest idea."

"Did you suggest anything?"

"He knows what my views are," said jenny.

"And those?"

"Well--make him a decent allowance and let him alone."

"He won't do that!" said Jack. "That's far too sensible."

"You think so?"

"That would solve the whole problem, of course," went on Jack, "marriage
and everything. I suppose it would have to be about eight hundred a
year. And Talgarth must have at least thirty thousand."

"Oh! he's more than that," said Jenny. "He gives Mr. Dick twelve
hundred."

There was a pause. Jack did not know what to think. He was only quite
certain that the thing would have been far worse if he had attempted to
manage it himself.

"Well, what shall I say to Frank?" he asked. Jenny paused again.

"It seems to me the best thing for you to do is not to write.