of a claim, he inclined to think, and should be supposed
to come from a personage having cause either to fear
him or to assist him. He set my speculations
astray by hinting that the request for the stopping
of the case might be a blind. A gift of money,
he said shrewdly, was a singularly weak method of
inducing a man to stop the suit of a life-time.
I thought of Lady Edbury; but her income was limited,
and her expenditure was not of Lady Sampleman, but
it was notorious that she loved her purse as well
as my aunt Dorothy, and was even more, in the squire’s
phrase, ’a petticoated parsimony.’
Anna Penrhys appeared the likelier, except for the
fact that the commencement of the annuity was long
before our acquaintance with her. I tried her
on the subject. Her amazement was without a shadow
of reserve. ’It ‘s Welsh, it’s
not English,’ she remarked. I knew no Welshwoman
save Anna.
‘Do you know the whole of his history?’
said she. Possibly one of the dozen unknown episodes
in it might have furnished the clue, I agreed with
her.
The sight of twenty-one thousand pounds placed to
my credit in the Funds assuaged my restless spirit
of investigation. Letters from the squire and
my aunt Dorothy urged me to betake myself to Riversley,
there finally to decide upon what my course should
be.
‘Now that you have the money, pray,’ St.
Parsimony wrote,—’pray be careful
of it. Do not let it be encroached on. Remember
it is to serve one purpose. It should be guarded
strictly against every appeal for aid,’ etc.,
with much underlining.
My grandfather returned the papers. His letter
said ’I shall not break my word. Please
to come and see me before you take steps right or left.’
So here was the dawn again.
I could in a day or two start for Sarkeld. Meanwhile,
to give my father a lesson, I discharged a number
of bills, and paid off the bond to which Edbury’s
name was attached. My grandfather, I knew, was
too sincerely and punctiliously a gentleman in practical
conduct to demand a further inspection of my accounts.
These things accomplished, I took the train for Riversley,
and proceeded from the station to Durstan, where I
knew Heriot to be staying. Had I gone straight
to my grandfather, there would have been another story
to tell.
WITHIN AN INCH OF MY LIFE
A single tent stood in a gully running from one of
the gravel-pits of the heath, near an iron-red rillet,
and a girl of Kiomi’s tribe leaned over the
lazy water at half length, striking it with her handkerchief.
At a distance of about twice a stone’s-throw
from the new carriage-road between Durstan and Bulsted,
I fancied from old recollections she might be Kiomi
herself. This was not the time for her people
to be camping on Durstan. Besides, I feared it
improbable that one would find her in any of the tracks
of her people. The noise of the wheels brought
