When Lady Mardykes came in, her delight knew no bounds.  She had already formed a plan for their future, and was not to be put off—­William Feltram was to take the great grazing farm that belonged to the Mardykes estate; or, if he preferred it, to farm it for her, sharing the profits.  She wanted something to interest her, and this was just the thing.  It was hardly half-a-mile away, up the lake, and there was such a comfortable house and garden, and she and Gertrude could be as much together as ever almost; and, in fact, Gertrude and her husband could be nearly always at Mardykes Hall.

So eager and entreating was she, that there was no escape.  The plan was adopted immediately on their marriage, and no happier neighbours for a time were ever known.

But was Lady Mardykes content? was she even exempt from the heartache which each mortal thinks he has all to himself?  The longing of her life was for children; and again and again had her hopes been disappointed.

One tiny pretty little baby indeed was born, and lived for two years, and then died; and none had come to supply its place and break the childless silence in the great old nursery.  That was her sorrow; a greater one than men can understand.

Another source of grief was this:  that Sir Bale Mardykes conceived a dislike to William Feltram that was unaccountable.  At first suppressed, it betrayed itself negatively only; but with time it increased; and in the end the Baronet made little secret of his wish to get rid of him.  Many and ingenious were the annoyances he contrived; and at last he told his wife plainly that he wished William Feltram to find some other abode for himself.

Lady Mardykes pleaded earnestly, and even with tears; for if Gertrude were to leave the neighbourhood, she well knew how utterly solitary her own life would become.

Sir Bale at last vouchsafed some little light as to his motives.  There was an old story, he told her, that his estate would go to a Feltram.  He had an instinctive distrust of that family.  It was a feeling not given him for nothing; it might be the means of defeating their plotting and strategy.  Old Trebeck, he fancied, had a finger in it.  Philip Feltram had told him that Mardykes was to pass away to a Feltram.  Well, they might conspire; but he would take what care he could that the estate should not be stolen from his family.  He did not want his wife stript of her jointure, or his children, if he had any, left without bread.

All this sounded very like madness; but the idea was propounded by Philip Feltram.  His own jealousy was at bottom founded on superstition which he would not avow and could hardly define.  He bitterly blamed himself for having permitted William Feltram to place himself where he was.

In the midst of these annoyances William Feltram was seriously thinking of throwing up the farm, and seeking similar occupation somewhere else.