"I do not know, sir. Most like he is in France."
"In France?" I cried with a start. For the answer flashed a suspicion into my mind which—prove it true, and it was out of my power to accept the inheritance! "In France? And the substance of the quarrel?"
"It is not for me, sir, to meddle in the right or wrong of it," he began.
"Nor did I ask you to," I cut him short "I ask you for the bare fact."
He looked at me for a second like one calculating his chances.
"Mr. Jervas sided with the Jacobites," and the words struck my hopes dead. My world dwindled and straitened as swiftly as it had enlarged.
"Then I can hardly supplant him," I said slowly, "for I side with that party too."
The steward's eyes gleamed very brightly of a sudden.
"Ah!" said I, "you, too, have the cause at heart"
"So much, sir, that I make bold to forget my station and to urge you to accept the bequest. There is no supplanting in the case. For if you refuse Blackladies it will not fall to Mr. Jervas." He drew from his pocket a roll of paper fastened with a great seal, and held it out to me. I broke the seal, and opened it. It contained a letter from Sir John's attorney at Appleby, and a copy of the will which set out very clearly that I was to possess the house and lands of Blackladies with all farms, properties, and rents attached thereto, upon the one condition, that I should not knowingly divert so much as the value of a farthing into the pockets of Mr. Jervas Rookley.