bank what had been borrowed on the estate.  For there had passed between them many communications respecting Folking.  The extravagances of the son became almost the delight of the father, when the father had become certain of the son’s reform.  There had been even jocular reference to Davis, and a complete understanding as to the amount of money to be given to the nephew in compensation for the blighted hopes as to the reversion of the property.

Why it should have been that these years of absence should have endeared to John Caldigate a place which, while it was his home, had always been distasteful to him, I cannot perhaps explain to those readers who have never strayed far from their original nests;—­and to those who have been wanderers I certainly need not explain it.  As soon as he felt that he could base the expression of his desires as to Folking on the foundation of substantial remittances, he was not slow to say that he should like to keep the place.  He knew that he had no right to the reversion, but perhaps his father would sympathise with his desire to buy back his right.  His father, with all his political tenets as to land, with his often-expressed admiration as to the French system, with his loud denunciations of the absurdity of binding a special family to a special fraction of the earth’s surface, did sympathise with him so strongly, that he at once accepted the arrangement.  ’I think that his conduct has given him a right to demand it,’ he said to Mr. Bolton.

’I don’t quite see that.  Money certainly gives a man great powers.  If he has money enough he can buy the succession to Folking if you choose to sell it to him.’

‘I mean as my son,’ said the father somewhat proudly.  ‘He was the heir.’

’But he ceased to be so,—­by his own doing.  I advised you to think longer over it before you allowed him to dispossess himself.’

‘It certainly has been all for the best.’

’I hope so.  But when you talk of his right, I am bound to say that he has none.  Folking is now yours, without encumbrance, and you can give it to whom you please.’

‘It was he who paid off the mortgage.’

’You have told me that he sent you part of the money;—­but that’s between you and him.  I am very glad, Caldigate, that your son has done so well;—­and the more so perhaps because the early promise was not good.  But it may be doubted whether a successful gold-digger will settle down quietly as an English country gentleman.’

There can be no doubt that old Mr. Bolton was a little jealous, and, perhaps, in some degree incredulous, as to the success of John Caldigate.  His sons had worked hard from the very beginning of their lives.  With them there had been no period of Newmarket, Davis, and disreputation.  On the basis of capital, combined with conduct, they had gradually risen to high success.  But here was a young man, who, having by his self-indulgence thrown away all the prospects of his youth, had rehabilitated