it has occurred to you?"

"Yes!" he admitted.

"And have you come to any conclusion?"

"None," he declared.

"You carried out my instructions with regard to the papers and documents
belonging to the estate?"

"Certainly, madam," he answered. "Within five minutes of receiving your
message, they were all locked up in the safe and the key handed to your
messenger."

"You did not go through them yourself?" she asked.

"I did not," he answered, lying with admirable steadiness. "I scarcely
felt that I was entitled to do so."

"So that you could not tell if any were missing?" she continued.

"I could not," he admitted.

"Your father never spoke, then, of any connexions with people--outside
Thorpe--likely to prove of a dangerous character?"

The young man smiled. "My father," he said, "had not been farther than
Loughborough for twenty years."

There was a short silence. Wilhelmina, deliberately, and without any
attempt at concealment, was meditatively watching the young man,
studying his features with a half-contemptuous and yet searching
interest. Perhaps the slightly curving lips, the hard intentness of her
gaze, suggested that he was disbelieved. He lost colour and fidgeted
about. It was a scrutiny not easy to bear, and he felt that it was going
against him. Already she had written him down a liar.

She spoke to him at last. If the silence had not ended soon, he would
have made some blundering attempt to retrieve his position. She spoke
just in time to avert such ignominy.

"Mr. Hurd," she said, "the question of your father's successor is one
that has doubtless occurred to you as it has to me. I trust that you
will, at any rate, remain here. As to whether I can offer you your
father's position in its entirety, I am not for the present assured."

He glanced up at her furtively. He was certain now that he had played
his cards ill. She had read through him easily. He cursed himself for a
lout.

"You see," she continued, "the post is one of great responsibility,
because it entails the management of the whole estates. It is necessary
for me to feel absolute confidence in the person who undertakes it. I
have not known you very long, Mr. Hurd."

He bowed. He could not trust himself to words.

"I have instructed them to send some one down from my solicitor's office
for a week or so," she continued, "to assist you. In the meantime, I
must think the matter over."

"I am very much obliged to you, madam," he sa