“Just for a minute, Boy, so that she can see it properly.”

Obediently I slowed to a standstill.  Then I backed the great car and swung up a side track for the length of a cricket-pitch.  The few cubits thus added to our stature extended the prospect appreciably.  Besides, it was now unnecessary to crane the neck.

At last—­

“If you’re waiting for me to say ‘Go,’” said Adele, “I shouldn’t.  I’m quite ready to sit here till nightfall.  It’s up to you to tear me away.”

I looked at Jill.

“Better be getting on,” I said.  “The others’ll be wondering where we are.”

She nodded.

We did not stop again till the car came to rest easily before the great oak door, which those who built White Ladies hung upon its tremendous hinges somewhere in the ’forties of the sixteenth century.

* * * * *

“It is my duty,” said Berry, “to inform you that on Wednesday I shall not be available.”

“Why?” said my wife.

“Because upon that day I propose to dispense justice in my capacity of a Justice of the Peace.  I shall discriminate between neither rich nor poor.  Beggars and billionaires shall get it equally in the neck.  Innocent and guilty alike——­”

“That’ll do,” said Daphne.  “What about Thursday?”

“Thursday’s clear.  One moment, though.  I had an idea there was something on that day.”  For a second he drummed on the table, clearly cudgelling his brains.  Suddenly, “I knew it,” he cried.  “That’s the day of the sale.  You know.  Merry Down.  I don’t know what’s the matter with my memory.  I’ve got some rotten news.”

“What?”

Daphne, Jill, Jonah and I fired the question simultaneously.

“A terrible fellow’s after it.  One Dunkelsbaum.  Origin doubtful—­very.  Last known address, Argentina.  Naturalized in July, 1914.  Strictly neutral during the War, but managed to net over a million out of cotton, which he sold to the Central Powers at a lower price than Great Britain offered before we tightened the blockade.  Never interned, of course.  Well, he tried to buy Merry Down by private treaty, but Sir Anthony wouldn’t sell to him.  They say the sweep’s crazy about the place and that he means to have it at any price.  Jolly, isn’t it?”

There was a painful silence.

Merry Down was the nearest estate to White Ladies, and was almost as precious to us as our own home.  For over two centuries a Bagot had reigned uninterruptedly over the rose-red mansion and the spreading park, the brown water and the waving woods—­a kingdom of which we had been free since childhood.  Never an aged tree blew down but we were told of it, and now—­the greatest of them all was falling, the house of Bagot itself.

One of the old school, Sir Anthony had stood his ground up to the last.  The War had cost him dear.  His only son was killed in the first months.  His only grandson fell in the battles of the Somme.  His substance, never fat, had shrunk to a mere shadow of its former self.  The stout old heart fought the unequal fight month after month.  Stables were emptied, rooms were shut up, thing after thing was sold.  It remained for a defaulting solicitor to administer the coup de grace....