“And do you still insist upon my playing the part you had marked out for me?  Do you know, George, that there were times in your illness when, if I had relaxed my care for a single five minutes, it would have turned the scale against you, and that once I did not close my eyes for five nights?  Look at me, how thin and worn I am:  it is from nursing you.  I have saved your life.  Surely you will not now force me to do this unnatural thing.”

“If, my dear Anne, you had saved my life fifty times, I would still force you to do it.  Ah! it is no use your looking at that safe.  I have no doubt that you got my keys and searched it whilst I was ill, but I was too sharp for you.  I had the letters moved when I heard that you were coming to nurse me.  They are back there now, though.  How disappointed you must have been!” And he chuckled.

“I should have done better to let you die, monster of wickedness and ingratitude that you are!” she said, stamping her foot upon the floor, and the tears of vexation standing in her eyes.

“The letters, my dear Anne; remember that you have got to earn your letters.  I am very much obliged to you for your nursing, but business is business.”

She was silent for a moment, and then spoke in her ordinary tone.

“By the way, talking of letters, there was one came for you this morning in your cousin Philip’s handwriting, and with a London postmark.  Will you read it?”

“Read it—­yes; anything from the father of my inamorata will be welcome.”

She fetched the letter and gave it him.  He read it aloud.  After a page of congratulations on his convalescence, it ended,

“And now I want to make a proposal to you—­viz., to buy back the Isleworth lands from you.  I know that the place is distasteful to you, and will probably be doubly so after your severe illness; but, if you care to keep the house and grounds, I am not particularly anxious to acquire them.  I am prepared to offer a good price,” &c. &c.

“I’ll see him hanged first,” was George’s comment.  “How did he get the money?”

“Saved it and made it, I suppose.”

“Well, at any rate, he shall not buy me out with it.  No, no, Master Philip; I am not fond enough of you to do you that turn.”

“It does not strike you,” she said, coldly, “that you hold in your hands a lever that may roll all your difficulties about this girl out of the way.”

“By Jove, you are right, Anne.  Trust a woman’s brain.  But I don’t want to sell the estates unless I am forced to.”

“Would you rather part with the land, or give up your project of marrying Angela Caresfoot?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because you will have to choose between the two.”

“Then I had rather sell.”

“You had better give it up, George.  I am not superstitious, but I have knowledge in things that you do not understand, and I foresee nothing but disaster in this plan.”