There was nothing to detain them at Malta, and Mr. Ferrars, who arranged everything, thought the calm of a sea-voyage would be better for them all than the bustle and fatigue of a land journey.

‘Kendal himself does not care about getting home,’ he said to Fred, who was afraid this was determined on his account.  ’I fear many annoyances are in store for him.  His son-in-law will not be pleasant to deal with about the property.’

With an exclamation Fred started from the chairs on which he had been resting, and dived into his sabre-tasch which hung from the wall.  ’I never liked to begin about it,’ he said, ’but I ought to have given them this.  It was done when he was so bad at Scutari.  One night he worked himself into a fever lest he should not live till his birthday, and said a great deal about this Dusautoy making himself an annoyance, perhaps insisting on a sale and turning his father out.  Nothing pacified him till, the very day he was of age, we got the vice-consul to draw up what he wanted, and witness it, and so did I and the doctor, and here it is.  Afterwards he warned me to say nothing of it when Mr. Kendal came, for he said if the other fellow made a row, it would be better his father should be able to say he had known nothing of the matter.’

‘Does he make his father his heir?’

’That’s the whole of it.  He said his sisters would see it was the only way to get things even, and I was to tell Albinia something about building cottages or almshouses.  Ay, “his father was to do what ought to have been done."’

‘Well, there’s the best deed of poor Gilbert’s life!’

‘Thank you,’ mumbled Fred, hall drolly, half gravely.

’Ay, Kendal and Albinia will do more good with that property than you have thought of in all your life, sir.’

‘Their future and my past,’ laughed Fred, adding more gravely, ’Scamp as I am, there’s more responsibility coming on me now, and I have gone through some preparation for it.  If I can get out to Canada—­’

‘You will not lessen your responsibilities,’ said Maurice, smiling, ‘nor your competency to meet them.’

‘I trust not,’ said Fred.

Mr. Ferrars read in his countenance far more than was implied by those words.  The General, by treating him as a boy, had kept him one, and perhaps his levity had been prolonged by the rejection of his first love; but a really steady attachment had settled his character, and he had been undergoing much training through his own sufferings, Gilbert’s illness, and the sense of the new position that awaited him as commanding officer; and for the first time Maurice, who had always been very fond of him, felt that he was talking to a high-principled and right-minded man instead of the family pet and laughing-stock.

‘I suppose,’ he said, ’that you cannot have heard often from Montreal since you have been in the East.’

’No.  If my letters are anywhere, it is at the Family Office.  I desired them to be forwarded thither from head-quarters, not expecting to be detained here.  But,’ cried Fred with animation, ’what think you of the General actually writing to Mr. Kinnaird from Balaklava?’