Douglas Falloden was sitting alone in his father’s
library surrounded by paper and documents. He
had just concluded a long interview with the family
lawyer; and a tray containing the remains of their
hasty luncheon was on a side-table. The room
had a dusty, dishevelled air. Half of the house-servants
had been already dismissed; the rest were disorganised.
Lady Laura had left Flood the day before. To her
son’s infinite relief she had consented to take
the younger children and go on a long visit to some
Scotch relations. It had been left vague whether
she returned to Flood or not; but Douglas hoped that
the parting was already over—without her
knowing it; and that he should be able to persuade
her, after Scotland, to go straight to the London house—which
was her own property—for the winter.
Meanwhile he himself had been doing his best to wind
up affairs. The elaborate will of twenty years
earlier, with its many legacies and bequests, had
been cancelled by Sir Arthur only six weeks before
his death. A very short document had been substituted
for it, making Douglas and a certain Marmaduke Falloden,
his uncle and an eminent K.C., joint executors, and
appointing Douglas and Lady Laura guardians of the
younger children. Whatever property might remain
“after the payment of my just debts” was
to be divided in certain proportions between Douglas
and his brother and sisters.
The estates, with the exception of the lands immediately
surrounding the castle, were to be sold to the tenants,
and the dates of the auction were already fixed.
For the castle itself, negotiations had been opened
with an enormously successful soap-boiler from the
north, but an American was also in the market, and
the Falloden solicitors were skilfully playing the
two big fish against each other. The sale of the
pictures would come before the court early in October.
Meanwhile the beautiful Romney—the lady
in black—still looked down upon her stripped
and impoverished descendant; and Falloden, whose sole
companion she often was through dreary hours, imagined
her sometimes as tragic or reproachful, but more commonly
as mocking him with a malicious Irish glee.
There would be some few thousand pounds left for himself
when all was settled. He was determined to go
into Parliament, and his present intention was to
stand for a Merton fellowship, and read for the bar.
If other men could make three or four thousand a year
within three years or so of being called, why not
he? His character had steeled under the pressure
of disaster. He realised with a clearer intelligence,
day by day, all that had gone from him—his
father—his inheritance—the careless
ease and self-assurance that goes with the chief places
at the feast of life. But if he must now drop
to the lower rooms, it would not be “with shame”
that he would do that, or anything else. He felt
within himself a driving and boundless energy, an
